No Right to An Honest Living: The Struggles of Boston's Black Workers in the Civil War Era

by Jacqueline Jones

From a Bancroft Prize winner, a harrowing portrait of Black workers and white hypocrisy in nineteenth-century Boston  
 
Impassioned antislavery rhetoric made antebellum Boston famous as the nation’s hub of radical abolitionism. In fact, however, the city was far from a beacon of equality. 
 
In No Right to an Honest Living , historian Jacqueline Jones reveals how Boston was the United States writ a place where the soaring rhetoric of egalitarianism was easy, but justice in the workplace was elusive. Before, during, and after the Civil War, white abolitionists and Republicans refused to secure equal employment opportunity for Black Bostonians, condemning most of them to poverty. Still, Jones finds, some Black entrepreneurs ingeniously created their own jobs and forged their own career paths. 
 
Highlighting the everyday struggles of ordinary Black workers, this book shows how injustice in the workplace prevented Boston—and the United States—from securing true equality for all. 

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Race, American History, Politics, American, Civil War

544 pages, Paperback

Published January 7, 2025

About the author

See also Jacqueline A. Jones

Reviews

[Steve Donoghue]

An erudite, challenging, and ultimately very enjoyable portrait of the challenges faced by former slaves even in places like Boston, where they had more rights and fairer treatment than they'd find virtually anywhere else in the country. Jones does a fantastic job of personalizing her story, filling it with well-rounded characters of all kinds. I was frustrated throughout by the author's very 21st-century tendency to, as the business-world wonks say, let the perfect be the enemy of the good (that Bostonians in 1870 didn't have the racial enlightenment of Bostonians in 2023 is not in any way a fair indictment of Bostonians of 1870, and it gets a little boring to keep pointing that out). But the book easily won me over with the sheer intelligence of its storytelling - and the importance of its reminder about the piecemeal nature of project. My review is here:

https://openlettersreview.com/posts/n...

[Brandon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a very good history of how Boston's labor practices before, during, and after the American Civil War impacted Black residents of the city and region. Jones' work received the Pulitzer Prize for History for the ways it reassessed Boston's reputation, then and now, as a beacon of racial equality. The text does a phenomenal job of reconsidering the fight for racial equity, moving beyond ideas of liberty and instead focusing on genuine equality, asking how the labor structure mirrored and calcified the social hierarchy of the city.

Though Jones does a remarkable job of interrogating labor relations as expressions of discrimination, privilege, and social opportunity, what sets it apart is its centering of Black workers (and at times, non-workers). Jones doesn't just write about Black labor as a statistical category with quantifiable contributions (though she does consider these factors), she writes about Black labor through the experiences and writings of Black stevedores, itinerant preachers, janitors, porters, housekeepers, and lawyers. Over the course of the book, you come to know figures like the Edloe Sixty-Six, Leonard Grimes, Thomas Selden, Joseph Clash (a particularly interesting character), and of course, Harriet and Louisa Jacobs. The book is not just a description of how Black Bostonians acted within the sphere of labor - it is a series of interwoven portraits of the laborers themselves.

This book is definitely one to take your time with, though. Whereas some histories have a great sense of forward motion and momentum, this one is better taken slowly, so you can really dig in and engage with the communities and community members Jones has so expertly illuminated. If you're rushing to complete the book for a deadline (like I was), you don't get to just live with her subjects in the way that works best.

Overall, a really great picture of Civil War-era Boston that helps explain its calcified segregation and inequality, adds nuance to my understanding of Boston abolitionists, and makes the city I live in feel far more real and important - in exciting and challenging ways. I'm super glad I read it. I would recommend it to my friends Emma, Stella, and maybe my grandfather.

[Lois · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 Stars Rounded Up
This audiobook was made available for me to listen to and review by Jacqueline Jones, Dreamscape Media, and NetGalley.

This was excellent, respectful, knowledgeable, well-sourced, and interesting. It mostly avoids focusing on the more harrowing aspects of slavery in the Antebellum period. I'd rate this as low as far as slavery trauma focus. Though this does focus on segregation and racism in Boston and the wider Northern states. Perhaps in terms of trauma, this is closer to reading about the Civil Rights Movement than many texts that deal with chattel slavery. I add this to say: don't shy away from this for fear of trauma. That's not the tone or focus.

The main subject matter and focus of this is Black folks' opportunities and everyday lives in Boston in this era. This takes specific individuals and follows their lives and includes some generational information when available. This explores the opportunities available in employment, housing, and personal lives. So this includes marriages, births, relocating even outside of Boston, and what the records reveal about how this person ended their days. This focuses on the basic struggle for even free Black folks during the antebellum era. It's very in-depth and fascinating. Often, the history of this period tends to focus on the few famous Black individuals, but while this did include them, the focus was primarily on regular folks' struggles.
This highlighted the differences that Black women faced in finding and maintaining freedom and affording to live. This was a hard and harrowing life for the vast majority of folks. Even more well-known figures like Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman really struggled to survive in the available economy.
I was really enlightened at the struggle between the established Black Boston community and the immigrant Irish community. Irish folks attacked established Black communities and accused them of taking their jobs and housing. It was wild. I forever think Irish Americans badly bungled this. Imagine the world we would all live in if Irish Americans had made common cause with Black Americans rather than focus on whiteness.

I really liked that this focused on and gave examples of the hypocrisy in white liberals/abolitionists of this era. I mean, it's historically focused but also relevant today. Many wealthy white liberal will march for Black Lives Matter but only so long as those lives stay in their respective red-line restricted communities. This focuses on the fact that white abolitionists were overwhelmingly anti-Black and held very troubling views of Black folks. This isn't a view of white abolitionists that we often see presented this clearly.

White abolitionists were largely in control of the funds raised to help formerly enslaved Black folks, whether escapees or post civil war. They seemed to operate from a fear that Black folks were inherently lazy and needed to be 'encouraged' to work hard. So, almost the same view that enslavers held of Black folks. Their policy was to give funds to aid escape but nothing to help formerly enslaved folks settle in a new place without family. In effect, their attitude reminded me of today's pro-lifers. Pro-life/anti-abortionists are obsessed with halting abortion but don't want to feed, clothe, or house these unplanned babies they insisted be born. If you consider the base wealth of the major white abolitionists, their hypocrisy is glaring. It's the historical version of Kim Kardashian's empty-headed 'Nobody wants to work anymore' nonsense.

I was appalled at the bootstrap rhetoric employed by white abolitionists post Civil War. At the same time, these same white abolitionists largely refused to employ Black folks in their businesses. They'd hire a few favored folks in their home, but they refused to integrate their businesses. Instead, white abolitionists overly focused on Black folks' willingness to work. As if enslaved people were taken care of and not exploited. It's frustrating because historically, white women really struggled post Civil War, and that was behind many of the Jim & Jane Crow era laws requiring Black women to work outside of the home. There were laws forcing Black women into domestic labor because white women were unprepared to care for their own homes, families, and children. As enslaved peoples, Black folks had been providing enough labor to provide for themselves and to enrich an entire white demographic/community/country and enrich Europe in the process. So clearly, they could provide just fine for themselves as they had been since they 'arrived' in the colonies.

This also does an excellent job pointing out what would today be termed 'respectability politics', which was how some Black folks responded, and continue to respond, to racist and eugenicist views common in US society. This behavior isn't directly called out nor a focus of the book, but it is included. This is important because just like the Jim & Jane Crow era racist beliefs that still plague our nation, this also works to increase racism and oppression. Black folks don't need to prove anything to be worthy of basic humanity. This is just a function of internalized racism.

This audiobook is narrated by Leon Nixon. Leon does an excellent job keeping the narrative interesting and from feeling like a very long history lecture. I pretty much binged this, and my attention never waivered.

Thank you to Jacqueline Jones, Dreamscape Media, and NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to and review this audiobook. All opinions and viewpoints expressed in this review are my own.

[Don Trowden · Rating 5 out of 5]

This close look at Boston pre-Civil War digs deep into the time period as seen through the eyes of the freed arriving slaves. Their struggles and many successes are uplifting accounts of human perseverance. Anyone who knows the geography of Boston will also appreciate learning of the West End of Beacon Hill as the place Black leaders went about helping other slaves and also integrating themselves into the city’s life, all done at the same time as the arrival of the Irish fleeing famine made competing for work extremely difficult. Learned a lot. Thanks to the author.

[William Lexner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good history almost ruined with the flawed logic of the author. At one point Jones laments that so much care was given to Civil War wounded veterans because none of them were black.

I think one ought to say that freed slaves AND the people who freed them with blood and valor and sacrifice should have been taken care of. Jones embarrasses herself with her unmeasured prejudice.

[Debbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The US South was not the only place in which Black Americans were treated and seen as "less than" whites -- less trustworthy, less hard working, less intelligent, less capable, less in multiple ways too many to name here. Boston stands out, in American history as a center of the cultural and liberal elite of the United States. The Revolution was largely centered in Boston and Philadelphia. The American literary enlightenment began in nearby Concord with the likes of Emmerson and Thoreau. It seemed the heart of abolitionism. Yet, this bastion of thought and concepts of freedom failed miserably in bringing broad access to employment for its free black citizens prior to the Civil War and, afterward, gave more assistance and support to former slaves moving North that to those who already lived for generations in Boston. Still, even that support was grossly inadequate for a family to earn a wage ensuring economic security, blocking the ability to create generational wealth.

At a time when arguments rage over whether the US remains a racist nation (yes, it is) and if people of color have full access to economic opportunity (less than pre-Trump), this book sheds important light on the truth that lack of economic opportunity was not missing only in the South, but just as strongly denied in the North, even in the city considered the most liberal and philosophically supportive of all.

Does it deserve it's Pulitzer? Absolutely, yes.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The book was an interesting look at the conflicts in Boston between the goal of freeing slaves and the reality of having former slaves in the Boston labor market, where fears of job competition and racism were directed against blacks, and also at immigrating Irish.
The book looked at the various rules that private and public organizations followed in reaction to those fears. Portions of the book I especially enjoyed were during the period of The Civil War where labor shortages caused by the war could not shake people from their fears.
The book also touched on the ability of blacks and Irish. The immigration of Irish and other groups are an interesting contrast to the immigration of blacks into the region. New Irish immigrants struggled, but they were a larger group (such as in voting) and Jones' book concludes they were above to assimilate into the society quicker. This was a good book and illustrations that during reconstruction many of the same conflicts and questions in our society persist. It also shows the political tensions and policy conflicts related to immigration.
The Prize winners cover a variety of fields and angles that I would not naturally choose to read. I enjoyed and learned from “No Right to an Honest Living” as I have with many previous Pulitzer Prize winners.

[Michael Reilly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had been eyeing this book, but I thought I might wait until it came out in paperback. It just won the Pulitzer Prize for history. That was enough to convince me to check it out.

This is a history of black workers in Boston from 1850 to 1875. During this period Blacks represented about 2% of Boston's population. The West End of Boston had the highest concentration of Black residents. Because of their small number of voters, they had almost no political power in the city

Boston was considered the center of anti-slavery activism during this period. William Lloyd Garrison and many other prominent abolitionists were based there. There were several riots and attempts to save fugitive slaves in protest of the Fugitive Slave Act. Many escaped slaves headed to Boston as the best place to start a new life. Massachusetts law, unlike many other states, did not regulate racial intermarriage.

Jones shows that Boston was a terrible place for black people to try to make a living. Blacks were systematically excluded from most trades. They owned only the most marginal businesses. The jobs in the construction industries and on the dock were almost exclusively white. During this period Boston saw a large influx of Irish Catholic immigrants. They were politically organized. As a group they were virulently racist and saw black workers as a threat to their jobs and good pay.

The two areas where a few black Bostonians could make some kind of living were vice and religion. One of the most fascinating stories she tells is the life of Joseph Clash, an appropriately named man. He was a black man who ran a series of dance halls/brothels. He appears to have paid off the police for protection He was a well-known Boston character. He lived in a world of violence but always managed to escape. In 1872, at the age of seventy, he shot himself with a pistol.

At the other end of Boston black life, Jones tracks the story of the Reverend Leonard Grimes and his wife Octavia. They built the Twelfth Baptist Church into the most influential black church in Boston. They raised funds for a new church building. The reverend was at the forefront of civil rights fight in Boston. Jones also highlights the massive amount of work that Octavia Grimes did to keep her household together on very meager pay and to keep the entire operations of the church going.

Jones traces the lives of black immigrants into Boston after the war and the stories of Black Bostonians going south during reconstruction. She also tells the story of the 54th and 55th Black regiments in the Union Army. They had a large number of Black Bostonians in their ranks. It is interesting that at the outset of the war the Union Army refused to allow black soldiers, but the US Navy set up a quota of 5% for black sailors. The black sailors were usually given the worst jobs.

Jones pulls together a huge amount of evidence. She calmly and methodically shows the daily grind for Black workers in Boston. She makes it clear that opposition to slavery did not mean support for decent lives for Black Bostonians.

Note; The book has several excellent maps of the crucial areas of Boston as they existed during this period and well-chosen illustrations. Boston history can't be well told without maps. My only complaint is that it would have been helpful to have an index of maps and illustrations to save flipping back trying to find the appropriate map or illustration.

[Sunny Lovestories · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was sure I wouldn’t learn anything new as I have studied this part of America’s history extensively but I was wrong.
This book is full of well researched and well paced and put together as some things happened at the same time, same day, same players in history crossing paths, ect.
The narrative was paced so well with even voice and temperament throughout. A must read for lovers of nonfiction.

[Jamie Park · Rating 5 out of 5]

First off I loved the narration! It was wonderful! I really learned a lot from this book. I consider myself to be pretty woke but I didn't know a lot of this social history. It is both black history and labor movement history. I was here looking up old news articles to enhance my new knowledge. It was great!

[Bookreporter.com Biography & Memoir · Rating 5 out of 5]

In NO RIGHT TO AN HONEST LIVING, award-winning writer Jacqueline Jones tackles a thorny subject as she examines the multiple layers of racism that affected the city of Boston, Massachusetts, in the years before, during and after the Civil War. Much of the material mined here can still be seen in undercurrents of today’s contrasting views of Black people and their “place” in society.

In 1847, Jones recounts, a group of 66 Black former slaves arrived in Boston, ready to assume the mantle of freedom and the responsibilities and rights it would seem to have entailed. But their experiences were in many cases far different from their expectations. Bostonians, even some of the abolitionist stripe, were reluctant to open their boundaries to southern migrants, with economy being a potent factor in their thinking. How could the North persist in the wealth wrought by clothing manufacture if the South stopped producing cotton through the work of slaves --- i.e., cheap labor keeping prices low?

The rhetoric of freedom and citizenship was extant among white proponents of abolition. Boston was more liberal than many other Northern cities, and Massachusetts more so than surrounding states. Still, the “Edloe” group (named for their former owner) and all those who followed would encounter complex racial bias that gradually morphed into racial stereotyping.

As Jones parses this in her wise and extensively researched framework, Black people were refused many jobs --- which instead frequently went to white Irish immigrants deemed more ambitious --- and often reluctantly wound up on the rolls of the city’s charities and the civic dole. This, in turn, identified them as people who did not want to work, were inherently migratory and lacked the will to succeed. While, as Jones writes, “Most white Bostonians accepted Black men at the ballot box and the jury box,” for the most part they were consigned to “casual, ill-paid, dead-end jobs.” Through these early examples, Jones paints a subtle portrait of the many ways in which American society has evolved, with ingrained, history-bound labels and tacit misconceptions that unfortunately endure.

Jones is a noted historian, the Ellen C. Temple Professor of Women’s History Emerita at the University of Texas, and winner of the Bancroft Prize for LABOR OF LOVE, LABOR OF SORROW. Her zeal for her subject, the people and their struggles resonates throughout this scholarly work. NO RIGHT TO AN HONEST LIVING provides rich study for a new perspective on how racial stereotyping has developed, with roots in war and (very potently, it seems) economic factors that barred those who most desperately needed --- and would have welcomed --- simple, decent, well-paid employment.

Reviewed by Barbara Bamberger Scott

[J Kromrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this eARC in audiobook format.

No Right to an Honest Living: The Struggles of Boston’s Black Workers in the Civil War Era by Jacqueline Jones, narrated by Leon Nixon, is a profound and meticulously researched exploration of the lives of Black workers in 19th-century Boston. This audiobook offers a compelling narrative that sheds light on the systemic injustices faced by African Americans during a pivotal period in American history.

Jones, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, delves into the period from 1845 to 1875, a time marked by significant social and political upheaval. She paints a vivid picture of the harsh realities that Black workers endured, from discriminatory labor practices to the pervasive racial prejudices that limited their economic opportunities. The book meticulously documents how, despite the abolitionist rhetoric that Boston was known for, true equality in the workplace remained elusive for Black Bostonians.

Leon Nixon’s narration is excellent. His voice brings a powerful and emotive quality to the text, enhancing the listener’s engagement with the material. Nixon’s delivery is both clear and compelling, making the complex historical content accessible and impactful.

Jones’s narrative is enriched by detailed case studies and personal stories that highlight the resilience and ingenuity of Black workers who navigated a hostile environment to create their own opportunities. These stories are not just historical accounts but also serve as a testament to the enduring spirit of those who fought against systemic oppression.

The audiobook also explores the broader implications of these struggles, linking the historical injustices faced by Black workers in Boston to the ongoing fight for racial and economic justice in America. Jones’s analysis is both thorough and thought-provoking, prompting listeners to reflect on the long-lasting effects of these historical injustices.

No Right to an Honest Living is an essential listen for anyone interested in American history, labor rights, and racial justice. Jacqueline Jones’s scholarly rigor combined with Leon Nixon’s engaging narration makes this audiobook a powerful and enlightening experience. 

[David Campbell · Rating 3 out of 5]

American social and labor historian Jacqueline Jones’s deeply researched winner of the 2023 Pulitzer Prizes for History canvasing the day-to-day realities of Black labor in Boston during the periods immediately prior, during, and after the American Civil War. ‘No Right’ is quite a long (544 pg), densely packed work of academic history, leaving literally no archival record (or cobblestone) unturned in Dr. Jones’s effort to (a.) paint a definitive history of Black labor in the activist capital of 19th century Abolitionism, and (b.) use that history to in turn argue that Boston’s treatment of its own Black labor force was (and probably still is) a complete contradiction of those Abolitionist values. As Boston’s progressive rhetoric marched ideologically and (after 1862) militarily across the North American continent, wave after wave of often freeborn and highly skilled Black labor (i.e., seamstresses, pastors, sailors, barbers, blacksmiths, etc.) arrived in the city under the pretenses of the social and economic equity preached and printed by Abolitionist leaders such as William Lloyd Garrison and Harriet Beecher Stowe only to find themselves systematically excluded and underemployed in piecemeal domestic service and janitorial work. The fate of freed slaves after 1862 (all former agricultural labor) was even more unstable. Black women’s labor was more precarious still, often unpaid, undocumented, and undervalued despite it being essential for the Black community’s survival. Jones waxes quite doctoral in her writing, so I will do so in my review: ‘No Right’ is a prime example of the ‘Espoused Theory vs. Theory in Use’ framework of 20th century organizational theorists Chris Argyris and Donald Schön (1974). An “Espoused Theory” being the worldview that an individual, or an organization, or even a city claim (maybe even to themselves) guides their actions, their “Theory in Use” being the worldview that their behaviors actually reveal. The White upper and upper middle classes of 19th century Boston talked a mad, loud, politically powerful, and at times financially lucrative game about social justice and equality among all Americans, mad enough to drive the deadliest war in the nation’s history, but (per Jones) the moment it came time for them to hire, mortgage a house to, or enroll the kids of one of those new dark-skinned people showing up in town alongside their sense of White, New England comfort and normalcy?...well....

[Anthony Conty · Rating 4 out of 5]

"No Right to an Honest Living: The Struggles of Boston's Black Workers in the Civil War Era" by Jacqueline Jones tells stories of people who succeeded with the deck stacked against them. Boston did the most to combat slavery but also the least to improve the quality of life after emancipation. Jones does a ridiculous amount of research to demonstrate this inequality.

The Black residents of Boston suffered from prejudice, for sure, but some of the bad luck that they experienced would make you cry. The odds were not in their favor. Characters from other historically significant stories, like John Brown and William Craft, make appearances to fight against these injustices and show why they happen to otherwise good people.

A fun game here in Maryland is to debate what caused the Civil War, and Jones demonstrates why it was such a dramatic debate. Abe Lincoln made it seem like the slavery question was over after the Emancipation Proclamation, but the struggle had just begun. As usual, the Black community in Boston tried to immerse themselves in more culture but found that it did not matter to most whites.

The three parts (pre-Civil War, Civil War, and Reconstruction) have three different stories to tell, and they are all engaging and relevant. The only advantage to the last section is that people start finding a wider range of job opportunities and education; thankfully, teaching is one of the more popular.

Jones illustrates how political mumbo jumbo and odd prejudice impeded progress. She does exhaustive research to do so. Historians, more than most, indicate why nonfiction qualifies as the hardest genre to write well. She takes something that few of us knew about and shows how it connects to modern society and the xenophobia that still exists today. It deserved the Pulitzer.

[Rachael McDowell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extremely well researched and well written true nonfiction novel covering the labor rights of post slavery African Americans in Boston. Racism, sexism, and capitalism intersect to paint a bleak picture of the lived experience of black Americans in Boston in an underreported era of American history. One of the most fascinating aspects of this for me was how the United States handled post slavery transition and how the impact of this transition is still seen today in how we view labor as a commodity, especially in minority populations. The novel also explored who is worthy of consistent labor, financial, freedom, and upward mobility and identified how social perceptions of worthiness have had impacts on the qualities of all black American’s lives, the ripples of which can still be felt today. I enjoyed the narration and thought it was easy to listen to, although I did find it challenging to follow along with some chapters with lots of names. Overall, excellent deep dive into a period of American history I feel schools often do not teach us enough about. As the saying goes, those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Dreamscape media for an advanced listener copy in exchange for an honest review

[Dana · Rating 4 out of 5]

No Right to an Honest Living is an incredibly thorough account of the lives of Black workers in Boston and the attitudes and actions of the white Bostonians. One huge thing that stuck out to me was the way this described the poor treatment of freed & escaped Black people in Boston without also serving up apologist excuses for the treatment in the Southern slave states.

The narrator, Leon Nixon, was also a narrator in the book I finished right before starting this (Master, Slave, Husband, Wife). He is extremely talented. He is easy to understand and adds just enough nuance to his narration that it is not stale or boring. It retains the gravity of the subject matter and draws you in, making you want to keep listening even though you’ve arrived at the end of your commute to work. I prefer to speed up my audiobooks 1.5-2x and it does not negatively affect Mr Nixon’s audio.

I accessed this audiobook for free through NetGalley and chose to leave a review for it.

[Kimberley · Rating 5 out of 5]

On the surface, a book about the black experience in Boston during a short period in the mid-19th century might seem a bit niche, however so much was happening at that point in time. This book was excellently researched and written. All of the social, cultural, political and financial issues were explored and exposed. We’re about 175yrs since events in this book but there are so many parallels to contemporary society. Legal protections, or lack thereof, are both separate to and intricately joined with how we treat each other. That was starkly true then, as it continues to be now.

[spoko · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not the most surprising revelations, perhaps, but still an illuminating history of the struggles Black Americans faced in the North, during & after the Civil War.

It was interesting reading part of this alongside Half American, and seeing the parallels with how race played out (especially in the military) before & after WWII.

[wade · Rating 5 out of 5]

A thought provoking study about the difficulty free Blacks and slaves had getting meaningful employment from about 1830 to just after the turn of the century. The author has chosen Boston as the center of her study with special emphasis on the sixty six passengers on the ship the Edlow as the passengers try to make a life for themself in Boston. There is much here as Jones looks into abolitionism, white resistance, government attempts to help and the overall hostile atmosphere to Blacks during this period.

[Jason Adams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Competent history

A thorough rehashing of a number of elements that undermines the old saw that northern states were an enlightened paradise for black Americans. I quibble with the idea of a “right” to work, but this volume does a workman like job in documenting the various iniquities facing black workers. Occasionally the narrative drifts as the author focuses on the intersection of women’s rights and black rights in employment, but overall gets the job done.

[Caleb Mason · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fascinating history told through the lens of Boston, a place I thought I knew well but did not. The history of the first freed slaves who came to Boston is the story of perseverance and amazing accomplishments to the life of the city. For those who enjoy Barbara Tuchman and other great historians, this is a must read.

[Daniel Kleven · Rating 5 out of 5]

Winner of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for History (after two previous nominations). This was a deep dive into just what the title says, thought it does range a little more widely than the strict city limits of Boston. Some great history, and if you are interested in Black Baptist history this contains maybe the most material I've ever seen on pastor Leonard Grimes.

[Jeff Macey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good book that was hard to listen to. I had a hard time because after all these years America's asinine and idiotic racism is still the definition of American culture! I am so thankful my parents didn't raise me as an empty headed racist like most white Americans are! I've been reading the Pulitzer History winners for the last 15 years or so otherwise I would never have heard about this book.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting account of how Black former slaves in Boston still encountered a lot of racism and were unable to find work even as abolitionists were active in the city. It can be a bit hard to keep track of all the names, but I learned about a lot of people I hadn't heard of, including one, Deacon Cyrus Foster, who was born in my hometown.

[Diane]

From The Christian Science Monitor: "Jones brings this history to life with graceful storytelling and a generous use of primary sources. She returns to many of the same figures again and again, allowing readers to follow their experiences over time."

[Christy-JC Carter · Rating 5 out of 5]

SO detailed and compelling! Jones has recreated the lives of so many black Bostonians in the 19th century, and she tells their stories with compassion and deep knowledge. This is an impressive volume, and I will find much to augment my teaching here.

[Alycia · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I did learn things in this book - it was too long and too one note. It is an important topic for fans of Boston - but not an easy read.

[C. Christopher · Rating 2 out of 5]

An essay stretched into a book in desperate need of an editor.

[Adamson Bryant · Rating 3 out of 5]

Found it really dry and hard to get through unfortunately

[Lori French · Rating 5 out of 5]

An illuminating study of pre–Civil War Boston, where freed slaves forged community and leadership amid shifting social and economic pressures.