Iola Leroy
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, 1892
A Civil War novel that follows a fair-skinned enslaved woman and her brother as emancipation forces them to decide what race, family and freedom will mean.
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
1825–1911
Born free in Baltimore and orphaned at three, Harper supported herself by lecturing and writing — one of the first Black women in America to do so.
Feels like society, freedom and hope.
She is being offered a palace, and she is thinking about a voice.
When the war is over I intend to search the country for my mother. Doctor, were you to give me a palace-like home, with velvet carpets to hush my tread, and magnificence to surround my way, I should miss her voice amid all other tones, her presence amid every scene. Oh, you do not know how hungry my heart is for my mother! Were I to marry you I would carry an aching heart into your home and dim its brightness. I have resolved never to marry until I have found my mother. The hope of finding her has colored all my life since I regained my freedom. It has helped sustain me in the hour of fearful trial. Books by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
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