Product Description: Despised and admired during his life and after his execution, the abolitionist John Brown polarized the nation and remains one of the most controversial figures in U.S. history. His 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia, failed to inspire a slave revolt and establish a free Appalachian state but became a crucial turning point in the fight against slavery and a catalyst for the violence that ignited the Civil War...read more

Provides historical and geographical information on the African slave trade in America, African Americans' participation in combat during wartime, and their struggle for equality during the Civil Rights Movement. (view table of contents)