As part of a graduate course presented by the Museum of Afro-American History in collaboration with Nantucket Public Schools and UMass Boston Graduate College of Education, James and Lois Horton, authors of Black Bostonians: Family Life and Community Struggle in the Antebellum North, discuss how, in post-Civil War Boston, African Americans formed a highly-organized community at the center of the antislavery movement. They describe how fugitive slaves and businessmen, washerwomen and barbers, churchgoers and abolitionists lived, worked, and organized for mutual aid, survival, and social action
James Oliver Horton is a distinguished professor of American Studies and History. He has published ten books, most recently The Landmarks of African American History in 2005, Slavery and the Making of America (Oxford University Press, 2004) the companion book for the WNET PBS series of the same which aired in February of 2005 and Slavery and Public History: The Tough Stuff of American Memory, edited in 2006 with Lois E. Horton. James Horton has been historical consultant to, and appeared in, numerous film and video productions including those seen on ABC, PBS, The Discovery Channels, C-Span TV, and The History Channel. In 2006 Professor Horton was elected to the National Academy of Arts and Sciences and received the George Washington University President's Medal for scholarly achievement and teaching excellence.
Lois E. Horton teaches in the UH Department of American Studies and serves as Professor of History at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. Horton is co-author of several books with James Oliver Horton, including Slavery and the Making of America (2004), Hard Road to Freedom: The Story of African America (2001), In Hope of Liberty: Culture, Community and Protest Among Northern Free Blacks, 1700-1860 (1997) and Black Bostonians: Family Life and Community Struggle in the Antebellum North (1979; 1999). Horton received her PhD from the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University. Her work on African-American communities, race, gender, and social change has been published in the US and Europe, and she has lectured extensively around the world.