Traces the personalities and the policies of two generations of leaders in one of the largest and most influential free black communities in antebellum America.

Sketches of the Higher Classes of Colored Society in Philadelphia, first published in 1841, was written by Joseph Willson, a southern black man who had moved to

This book is the first to trace the fortunes of the earliest large free black community in the U.S. Nash shows how black Philadelphians struggled to shape a fam

Emilie Davis was a free African American woman who lived in Philadelphia during the Civil War. She worked as a seamstress, attended the Institute for Colored Yo

Residents of Philadelphia have been nagging Akashic Books for years to see their own entry in the award-winning Noir series. The time has finally arrived - but