Why read Denmark Vesey's Garden?

Book cover of Denmark Vesey's Garden: Slavery and Memory in the Cradle of the Confederacy

Book description

One of Janet Maslin's Favorite Books of 2018, The New York Times

One of John Warner's Favorite Books of 2018, Chicago Tribune

Named one of the "Best Civil War Books of 2018" by the Civil War Monitor

"A fascinating and important new historical study."
-Janet Maslin, The New York Times

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American history

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Why read it?

1 author picked Denmark Vesey's Garden as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Judith Reifsteck

Author

I recommend this first book because I believe racial violence won’t stop in our country until we tell the truth about our past. Only by memorializing the accurate stories of racial injustice in our history can we convince good people that white supremacy is alive and strong and destroying our national unity.

In their book, historians Kyle and Roberts reveal the links between the beliefs of the confederacy in the 1850s South and the modern-day massacre by white supremacist Dylann Roof who sought out slavery’s descendants and terrorized them anew in the 2015 Charleston massacre.

The murdered churchgoers were elders…

From Judith's list on The best books about the power of memory to heal the trauma of racial violence.