Barnes & Noble to Host Book Signing for Virginia Waterways and the Underground Railroad

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. - Feb. 5, 2018 - PRLog -- Barnes & Noble to Host Book Signing for Virginia Waterways and the Underground Railroad

Local author Cassandra L. Newby-Alexander will be available to sign copies of book

Enslaved Virginians sought freedom from the time they were first brought to the Jamestown colony in 1619. Acts of self-emancipation were aided by Virginia's waterways, which became part of the network of the Underground Railroad in the years before the Civil War. Watermen willing to help escaped slaves made eighteenth-century Norfolk a haven for freedom seekers. Famous nineteenth-century escapees like Shadrack Minkins and Henry "Box" Brown were aided by the Underground Railroad. Enslaved men like Henry Lewey, known as Bluebeard, aided freedom seekers as conductors, and black and white sympathizers acted as station masters. Historian Cassandra Newby-Alexander narrates the ways that enslaved people used Virginia's waterways to achieve humanity's dream of freedom.

About the Author:

Cassandra Newby-Alexander currently serves as a professor of history and the director of the Joseph Jenkins Roberts Center for the African Diaspora at Norfolk State University. She has spearheaded the 1619 Making of America conference, which seeks to transform the narrative about the role of early Africans in the evolution of America. Her books include An African American History of the Civil War in Hampton Roads and Hampton Roads: Remembering Our Schools and Voices from within the Veil: African Americans and the Experience of Democracy.

Join the author for a signing:

Where:  Barnes & Noble

12170 Jefferson Avenue

Newport News, VA 23602

When:  Saturday, February 17^th, 2018 at 1:00 p.m.

Available at area bookstores, independent retailers, and online retailers, or through Arcadia Publishing at (888)-313-2665 or online.

The combination of Arcadia Publishing & The History Press creates the largest and most comprehensive publisher of local and regional content in the USA. By empowering local history and culture enthusiasts to write local stories for local audiences, we create exceptional books that are relevant on a local and personal level, enrich lives, and bring readers closer - to their community, their neighbors, and their past. Have we done a book on your town?  Visit www.arcadiapublishing.com

Virginia Waterways and the Underground Railroad

by Cassandra L. Newby-Alexander

ISBN:  9781625859631

$21.99 | 192 pp. | paperback