On every page, in every single story, author Carole Emberton leads readers to learn something they didn’t know or to meet someone new, and it’s done between the facts of history and social mores, presented concurrently with Priscilla Joyner’s story ... This is one of those books that’ll make you lose track of time and your surroundings. lt’ll answer questions, raise your pride, and it’ll make your head spin for days after you’re done reading it. To Walk About in Freedom is the book you need to keep you in your chair.
... insightful ... a necessary, judicious correction to previously published accounts ... Emberton’s attention to detail, whether she’s describing an inept FWP interviewer, an intimidated storyteller or the heavy-handed project editor, succeeds in debunking any nostalgia attached to the 'Lost Cause' of the Confederacy.
... deft and revealing ... Emberton’s book analyzes and validates Joyner’s oral history, and adds rich historical context to fill in and flesh out the lives of Joyner and other Black Americans of that era, who discussed what slavery and freedom meant and made their way by building their own communities through family, church, and school. In Emberton’s telling, it is clear that Joyner owned her own story, and thus herself ... Emberton’s sensitive and sympathetic recovery of Joyner’s story speaks volumes on what freedom meant and might mean, and why the best way to know a person is to listen to and learn from the stories they choose to tell.
Among the most fascinating chapters are those that assess, with remarkable sensitivity, her decadeslong efforts to create a stable family life within emergent Black communities. Emberton’s description of the importance of romantic love for freedpeople, and its relevance to Joyner’s own marriage, is particularly affecting. Another strength of the book is the author’s alternation of commentary on its central figure with analysis of the broader social context in which she lived: the expansion of opportunities for establishing personal autonomy in private and public life, the routine threats posed by those hostile to racial equality, the need for continual resistance to injustices entrenched in the nation’s institutions. Emberton creates an illuminating view of the daily struggles and triumphs that characterized African Americans’ 'long emancipation' ... An insightful, poignant consideration of a representative figure’s negotiation of liberty in the decades after Emancipation.
... stirring ... Emberton’s astute contextualization of Priscilla’s experiences sheds light on the promise and peril of emancipation while testifying to the 'power of a single life to amplify the contours of history.' Readers will gain valuable insight into the “long afterlife” of slavery in America.
