IN DEFIANCE: Lives That Mattered in the Struggle for Justice and Equality Before the Civil War (pre-publish notice)

Tom’s next book, In Defiance: Lives That Mattered in the Struggle for Justice and Equality Before the Civil War has been accepted for publication by Interlink Publishing, which is owned by Michel Moushabeck who is a Palestinian active in the effort to have a homeland for his people. It is scheduled to make its debut in the summer or fall of 2024.

For this book Tom collaborated with Dr. Amilcar Shabazz, a professor of history and Africana Studies in the W. E. B. DuBois Department of African-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts since 2007.  The book features an introduction that focuses on the history of enslavement in the United States. It is followed by 20 biographies of 5 Black women and 5 Black men, 5 white women and 5 white men, whose contributions to the abolition movement have heretofore not received the acknowledgement and appreciation they all richly deserve. 

The title was inspired by a quotation in the book Learning from the Germans by Susan Nieman.  She interviews Brian Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative and author of Just Mercy.  Both books are highly recommended.  Here’s what Stevenson said:

You should be proud of those Southerners in Mississippi and Louisiana and Alabama who argued in the 1850s that slavery was wrong.  There were white Southerners in the 1920s who tried to stop lynchings, and you don’t know their names.  The fact that we don’t know their names says everything we need to know.  If those names were commemorated, the country could turn from shame to pride.  We can actually claim a heritage rooted in courage, and defiance of what is easy, and preferring what is right. We can make that the norm we want to celebrate as our Southern history and heritage and culture. 

In many ways, that is what this latest book seeks to do. When it arrives you can take its measure regarding how successful it is being in enabling all of America “to claim a heritage rooted in courage and defiance of what is easy, and preferring what is right.”