Off The Page from WSKG · Anne Bailey - The Weeping Time
Between 1760 and 1860, more than 1.2 million enslaved men, women and children were sold in the United States. The wealth of a nation was built on the trade of people - of slaves - yet most of us know very little about these auctions or the people who were sold there.
Professor Anne Bailey from Binghamton University is
working to change that. Her book, The Weeping Time: Memory and the Largest Slave Auction in American History,
tells the story of a specific auction in 1859. But it also examines the trauma that still exists today, and the healing that families are finding as they trace their lineage back to the auction block.
Professor Bailey is a writer, historian, and professor of history at Binghamton University. She's the author of African Voices of the Atlantic Slave Trade: Beyond the Silence and the Shame, and The Weeping Time: Memory and the Largest Slave Auction in American History. She's also the founding director of the Binghamton University Harriet Tubman Center for the Study of Freedom and Equity.
Full disclosure: Anne Bailey is a member of the WSKG Board of Trustees.
More Reading and Resources:
They Sold Human Beings Here - Anne Bailey (The 1619 Project)