{"id":7108,"date":"2021-01-13T10:46:24","date_gmt":"2021-01-13T15:46:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/?p=7108"},"modified":"2021-01-13T10:46:24","modified_gmt":"2021-01-13T15:46:24","slug":"pulitzer-prize-winners-talk-to-headline-black-history-month-events","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/2021\/01\/13\/pulitzer-prize-winners-talk-to-headline-black-history-month-events\/","title":{"rendered":"Pulitzer Prize winner’s talk to headline Black History Month events"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"W.
W. Caleb McDaniel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A talk by a Pulitzer Prize-winning author opens University of Detroit Mercy\u2019s Black History Month 2021 celebration.<\/p>\n

W. Caleb McDaniel will discuss his book\u00a0Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America<\/em>\u00a0in a\u00a0virtual format Feb. 2 from 6:30-8 p.m.<\/a><\/p>\n

Sweet Taste of Liberty<\/em>\u00a0tells the story of Henrietta Wood, who twice survived slavery and successfully sued her captor, receiving the largest-known amount of restitution for slavery awarded by a federal court. The book earned the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in History.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was not a very widely known story before I got started on the research for the book,\u201d said McDaniel, who is the Mary Gibbs Jones professor of Humanities and chair of the History department at Rice University. \u201cI think it\u2019s important to include the lives of African American women in the ways that we tell American history, because their experience provides a perspective on the nation\u2019s history.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wood\u2019s story is one of courageousness and determination.<\/p>\n

Born into slavery in Kentucky, Wood gained her freedom legally in 1848. That liberty was short-lived, however, as Wood was kidnapped five years later while living in Cincinnati, Ohio \u2014 a free state \u2014 and sold back into slavery. Freed again by the Civil War, Wood sued her captor, Zebulon Ward, for restitution in 1870 and after eight years of litigation, was awarded $2,500.<\/p>\n

McDaniel first learned of Wood in 2014 after discovering a newspaper interview she gave in 1879.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat captured my attention partly because, of course, there was a lot of attention around the sesquicentennial of the Civil War and also Ta-Nehisi Coates\u2019 Atlantic Magazine article,\u00a0The Case for Reparations<\/em><\/a>, and that had revived public debates about how to reckon with and repair the historical wrongs of slavery,\u201d McDaniel said. \u201cSo, it seemed to me that Wood\u2019s case provided an instance of restitution that might inform those debates because she won her case.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pursuit of Wood\u2019s story took McDaniel across the country as he searched archives in nine states to piece together American history.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t have written the book without, first of all, her own determination to tell her story and have it told, because she spoke with newspaper reporters during her lifetime on several occasions,\u201d McDaniel said. \u201cShe made her petition to the court that laid out her story, and each time she told her story in those venues, she included dates and names that provided me with clues to find other sources in those various archives that could put together the puzzle and come up with more of a complete picture of what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Conversations about racial justice, reparations and similar topics have grown in the time McDaniel was working on the book and he believes her story can help Americans addressing the same issues today.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think one thing that her story demonstrates is how even a small amount of restitution can make a difference in a family like hers,\u201d McDaniel said.<\/p>\n

Wood\u2019s reward, worth roughly $65,000 today, was far less than the $20,000 she had sued for, but its impact on her family was profound. It helped Wood\u2019s son, Arthur H. Simms, purchase a house and attend law school, jumpstarting a lengthy career as a lawyer.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the book, I follow how her family and descendants benefitted well into the 20th Century,\u201d McDaniel said. \u201cI think at the same time, it\u2019s a story about the limitations of restitution pursued in the courts, as she did, because the man she sued, Zebulon Ward, fought her tooth and nail to the very end and never really acknowledged that he had done anything wrong. And so, I think a larger reckoning with the history of slavery is really what today\u2019s movements with racial justice are calling for, and I think her story is evidence of why a larger reckoning is still needed and important.\u201d<\/p>\n

For McDaniel, the opportunity to share Wood\u2019s story has been fulfilling.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been an extremely rewarding and humbling experience to see how many people have learned about Henrietta Wood through the book and how her story has resonated with contemporary debates about racial justice and reckoning with the history of slavery,\u201d McDaniel said. \u201cI find it gratifying to see the recognition the book has gotten, not so much because of the book, but it means people have recognized her story as an important part of American history.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also hopes Wood\u2019s story can provide valuable lessons to those who hear it.<\/p>\n

\u201cHer story is one of tremendous resilience and determination to seek justice, so I think her name should be included within the long tradition of Black History month figures who we remember for their willingness to make what John Lewis calls, \u2018good trouble.\u2019\u201d McDaniel said. \u201cI think she\u2019s an example of that and I hope that people who hear more about her story will be inspired to learn more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Detroit Mercy is celebrating Black History Month through several virtual events, including music and dance sessions that feature jazz music and West African drumming, the annual Love Stories from the Underground Railroad presentation and an ecumenical service.\u00a0Learn more about these activities<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A talk by a Pulitzer Prize-winning author opens University of Detroit Mercy\u2019s Black History Month 2021 celebration. W. Caleb McDaniel will discuss his book\u00a0Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America\u00a0in a\u00a0virtual format Feb. 2 from 6:30-8 p.m. Sweet Taste of Liberty\u00a0tells the story of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":7109,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[23,30],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/88\/2021\/01\/mcdaniel-portrait-scaled.jpg?fit=2107%2C2560&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8Kcng-1QE","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7108"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7108"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7108\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7110,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7108\/revisions\/7110"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}