Freedom Lost, Freedom Won: A Personal History of America

by Eugene Robinson

Pulitzer Prize–winning former Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson tells our nation’s torturous racial history through his own family’s story, starting with his great-grandfather’s freedom from slavery and threading his way to his own narrative and reaching today’s Black Lives Matter movement, asking whether this time will be different.

On March 27, 1829, a wealthy white planter and entrepreneur named Richard Fordham purchased four enslaved African Americans from a woman named Isabella Perman. One of them was journalist Eugene Robinson’s great-great-grandfather, a boy called Harry.

Starting from this transaction, which took place in Charleston, South Carolina, Freedom Lost, Freedom Won brings to life 200 years of our nation’s history through the eyes of the remarkable family that Harry founded. Assigned a formal name—Henry Fordham—and put to work as a blacksmith, he achieved his own freedom a decade before the Civil War. He was there when victorious Union troops marched into Charleston in 1865, ending slavery and guaranteeing liberty for Black people—only on paper, though, and only for a time.

Robinson traces the arc of his familial lineage through the repeated cycles in which African Americans have fought their way upward toward freedom and opportunity, been forced back down again, and renewed their determined climb.

From his great-great-grandfather’s achievement in becoming a “free person of color” before emancipation to his great-grandfather’s Reconstruction-era success, from his father’s odyssey of the Great Migration to his own coming-of-age during the civil rights movement, Robinson delves into a rich archive of Black narratives, arguing that we still have a long way to go before it is possible to speak of a “post-racial America.”

Setting his extensive research within the larger historical context, Robinson provides both an indictment of structural racism and an illustration of how it has been fought and, at times, courageously overcome. Freedom Lost, Freedom Won tells our country’s tortuous racial history through Robinson’s family’s story of struggle and survival, pushing us to consider how far the nation has come—willingly or not—and how far it still has to go.

Genres: Memoir, History, Nonfiction, Biography, Biography Memoir, African American, Historical

336 pages, Hardcover

Published February 3, 2026

Reviews

[Evelyn Petschek · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely wonderful! A fascinating read, beautifully written by a favorite journalist - part memoir, part family history, part American history. Beginning with the author’s great great grandfather (on his mother’s side) who was bought and sold twice as a slave until he was able to buy his own freedom before the civil war to the author, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. And also on his father’s side, part of the great migration north. Themes of bigotry and rising above it, perseverance and survival, strength of love and family. Fabulous audio narration by the author.

[Susan Morris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve been reading books for African American history month, and in preparation for a tour of important civil rights locations in a few months. This new book is an interesting look at a broad sweep of African American history, thru the lens of the author’s family. An interesting read.

[Hank Stuever · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a compelling and beautifully rendered exploration of family, memory, true American history and endurance. "Freedom Lost, Freedom Won" is a careful, honest, and dutifully reported memoir -- with its up and downs, its easy humor and heart, and its reckoning with progress and setbacks. It's easy to imagine how proud Eugene Robinson's parents and forebears, wherever they are now, are of everything he is and has achieved -- and what they themselves achieved.

By the time you get to the end of this book, where its honesty extends into the present-day anguish of watching America regress into its worst tendencies and treatment of one another, you will also be bursting with pride for everything that Gene became, and is. Bravo to my former boss!

(And on that note, in all the memoirs I've read that recount the journalistic life and times at the dynamic Washington Post circa 1970s/'80s/'90s and beyond, I think this book includes the best recounting of what life was like for its pioneering Black journalists of the day, who did so much to help the newsroom more deeply understand and report on the official and "real" Washington, and indeed, opened doors for colleagues and readers to a much larger account of American culture and society.)

[Rebecca Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

An eminently readable, well-written and engaging family history intertwined with the American history that marked it indelibly. The narrative jumps smoothly from the legal and cultural context to the enormously appealing members of Robinson’s family, including a great-great grandfather who bought himself out of enslavement, grandparents who owned land and acted as a kind of bank for the community, and uncles who served in WWII. Connecting the history I’ve read in books to their individual stories, of someone who I’ve read for years, helps in this continuous project of understanding where we’ve come from. I also learned about the Orangeburg Massacre from this book, an important event that was lost to me with all of the other monumental events of 1968. His comparison of this event to Kent State is itself a helpful meditation on how and why we decide to remember. Robinson is an excellent, engaging reader of his work.

[Diehljk · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beautifully written and moving account of the African American experience, as seen through the remarkable family of a longtime Washington Post journalist and MSNBC commentator. Eugene Robinson makes us feel as well as understand the tragedies and triumphs of that history. He offers a clear-headed account of what has been gained, and then lost, and then gained again—and a ray of hope that these dark times do not spell the end of the story.

[Zoe Zeid · Rating 4 out of 5]

Learned a lot about African American history and the African American experience throughout the last 300 years. It was amazing how much information the author had and was able to research on his family and it was very interesting to hear about how his ancestor was a freed slave even before the civil war. I wish I had been taught a lot of this information in school. This is a great read or listen for Black History Month, but also for any other time of the year.

[Karen Garloch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Robinson's personal history connects with America's history in powerful ways.
Even if you've read a lot about the Civil War, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and civil rights, you'll still learn a lot here. And it's written in very accessible language with so many connections to current events. Recommend highly.

[Dianne Guhl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved It

I love Eugene Robinson. Getting glimpse into the black American experience told from his honest perspective was an eye-opener. I loved learning about his family life and their history. It was an excellent read.

[Liz Canella · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incisive and poignant history of African Americans layered with the narrative of the author’s own family trajectory traced back to before the Civil War. If only the last chapter “The Backlash…” weren’t necessary.

[Chris Humphrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding read! Such a pleasure to read a well written book. The working of family history and the history of the United States is done excellently.

[Amy Turner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well-written compination of the personal and the historical.