Best Slavery

Beloved, a haunting and powerful novel, confronts the legacy of slavery through the story of Sethe, a former slave haunted by the ghost of her baby daughter, known only as Beloved. Morrisons lyrical p...

Colson Whitehead's 'The Underground Railroad,' winner of the 2016 National Book Award, reimagines the Underground Railroad as a literal railway beneath the American South. This powerful and imaginativ...

Edward P. Jones 2003 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel explores a little-known aspect of American history: Black slaveholders in antebellum Virginia. Through the story of Henry Townsend, a former slave who...

Harriet Tubman, born Araminta Ross, was a conductor on the Underground Railroad, risking her life repeatedly to lead enslaved people to freedom. After escaping slavery herself, she made numerous trips...

James M. McPhersons 'Battle Cry of Freedom' is widely considered the definitive single-volume history of the American Civil War. Part of the Oxford History of the United States, it masterfully balance...

Based on the memoir of Solomon Northup, this film provides an unflinching look at the reality of slavery in the United States. Directed by Steve McQueen, it follows a free Black man from upstate New Y...

Scott Alexanders 'Chain-Gang: Forged in Fire' presents a chilling alternate history where the Confederacy won the Civil War and slavery persisted into the 21st century. The novel explores themes of op...

Django Unchained is a sprawling, high-energy revisionist western that tackles the horrors of American slavery through the lens of a classic revenge tale. Jamie Foxx stars as a freed slave who teams up...

A freed slave, Django, teams up with a German bounty hunter to rescue his wife from a brutal plantation owner in the antebellum South. This film is a stylized, explosive, and highly cathartic revenge...

Beloved, published in 1987, is arguably Morrisons most celebrated work, winning the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. The novel confronts the brutal legacy of slavery through the haunting story of Sethe, a...

Lawrence Hills 'The Book of Negroes' is a sweeping, epic novel that follows Aminata Diallo, a woman kidnapped from West Africa and sold into slavery in South Carolina. The story tracks her journey thr...

Ta-Nehisi Coates The Water Dancer is a historical fiction novel that incorporates the ocean and maritime elements into a powerful narrative about slavery and the Underground Railroad. The protagonist,...

Spartacus, released in 1960, is a sweeping historical epic depicting the slave rebellion against the Roman Republic. The film features a large ensemble cast and impressive battle sequences. While Kubr...

Octavia E. Butlers Kindred is a powerful, genre-defying work that uses time travel to explore the horrors of American slavery. Dana, a modern Black woman, is repeatedly pulled back in time to a pre-Ci...

Edward P. Jones 'The Known World,' the 2006 National Book Award winner, is a sprawling and ambitious novel set in antebellum Virginia, exploring the complexities of slavery through the story of a blac...

A Mercy, published in 2008, is set in 17th-century New York and explores the lives of slaves and indentured servants in colonial America. Morrison examines themes of slavery, identity, and the complex...

Sue Monk Kidds 'The Invention of Wings,' the 2012 National Book Award finalist, is a richly detailed and emotionally resonant novel inspired by the life of Sarah Grimké, an abolitionist and womens rig...

Yaa Gyasis debut novel is a breathtaking generational saga that begins with two half-sisters in 18th-century Ghana. One marries a British slaver, while the other is sold into slavery in America. The b...

Colson Whitehead reimagines the Underground Railroad as a literal subterranean train system, creating a powerful allegory for the American experience of slavery. The story follows Cora, a young woman...