At the Threshold of Liberty: Women, Slavery, and Shifting Identities in Washington, D.C.
Tamika Y. Nunley
University of North Carolina Press
Consulting newspapers, government documents, letters, abolitionist records, legislation, and memoirs, Nunley traces how Black women - enslaved, fugitive, and free - navigated social and legal proscriptions to develop their own ideas about liberty as they escaped from slavery, initiated freedom suits, created entrepreneurial economies, pursued education, and participated in political work.