Book Release
Last Seen: The Enduring Search By Formerly Enslaved People to Find Their Lost Families
by Judith Giesberg
"Love speaks across miles, decades, and centuries in this meticulously excavated tribute to the formerly enslaved mothers, fathers, siblings, and kin who published 'last seen' advertisements in search of loved ones stolen from them in bondage. Patience and Clara Bashop, Hagar Outlaw, Tally Miller, and the other seekers featured here may or may not have succeeded in having their beloveds restored to them, but the power of their loving, the spirit of their loved ones, and the immense scope of their courage breathe off the page in this vital work of recovery."
Ilyon Woo
Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Master Slave Husband Wife
"Last Seen is the most profound book written on African American family in many years. No one has done this kind of heroic research to uncover the layered and moving story of the quest for family cohesion and indeed, the essence of freedom. Women in particular were catalysts for this decades-long, national scale search for elemental connection--the lost loved ones dispersed by slavery and war. Giesberg weaves a lyrical web of narrative and analysis in this richly human story."
David W. Blight
Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Frederick Douglass