To Walk About in Freedom: The Long Emancipation of Priscilla Joyner
Carole Emberton
W. W. Norton & Company
Priscilla Joyner was born into the world of slavery in 1858 North Carolina and came of age at the dawn of emancipation. Raised by a white slaveholding woman, she grew up isolated and unsure of who she was and where she belonged―feelings that no emancipation proclamation could assuage. Her life story―candidly recounted in an oral history for the Federal Writers’ Project―captures the intimate nature of freedom. Using Joyner’s interview and the interviews of other formerly enslaved people, Emberton uncovers the deeply personal, emotional journeys of freedom’s charter generation―the people born into slavery who walked into a new world of freedom during the Civil War. From the seemingly mundane to the most vital, emancipation opened up a myriad of new possibilities: what to wear and where to live, what jobs to take and who to love.