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Somerset Homecoming: Recovering a Lost Heritage / Edition 1

by Dorothy Spruill Redford, Michael D'Orso Dorothy Spruill Redford

ISBN: 0807848433
ISBN-13: 9780807848432
Edition: 1
Pub. date: 03/30/2000
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press

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In 1860, Somerset Place was one of the most successful plantations in North Carolina—and its owner one of the largest slaveholders in the state. More than 300 slaves worked the plantation's fields at the height of its prosperity; but nearly 125 years later, the only remembrance of their lives at Somerset, now a state historic site, was a lonely wooden sign marked "Site of Slave Quarters."

Somerset Homecoming, first published in 1989, is the story of one woman's unflagging efforts to recover the history of her ancestors, slaves who had lived and worked at Somerset Place. Traveling down winding southern roads, through county courthouses and state archives, and onto the front porches of people willing to share tales handed down through generations, Dorothy Spruill Redford spent ten years tracing the lives of Somerset's slaves and their descendants. Her endeavors culminated in the joyous, nationally publicized homecoming she organized that brought together more than 2,000 descendants of the plantation's slaves and owners and marked the beginning of a campaign to turn Somerset Place into a remarkable resource for learning about the history of both African Americans and whites in the region.

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From the Publisher

[Redford] tells the story—and it is a fascinating one—with charm and good humor.

The Atlantic

The moving story of how one black woman, inspired by Alex Haley's Roots, discovered her family's heritage.

New York Times Book Review

It makes fascinating reading, thanks not only to the engrossing subject but also to a finely tuned, appealing style.

Southern Living

There are moments of drama, high humor and sorrow in Redford's odyssey.

Publishers Weekly

Dorothy's study is the best, most beautifully researched, and most thoroughly presented black family history that I know of.

Alex Haley

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Redford, born into a black family of Columbia, N.C., in 1943, researched her roots over a period of 10 years. ``There are moments of drama, high humor and sorrow in Redford's odyssey. It's a joy to share her triumph at identifying her forebears, then bringing together 2000 of their descendants in 1986. The homecoming was at Somerset Place, the plantation in North Carolina where their ancestors were slaves,'' said PW. Photos. (Aug.)

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Somerset Homecoming: Recovering a Lost Heritage / Edition 1

Paperback

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