Celebrating I Saw Death Coming's Paperback Release

We are so excited to celebrate this book's paperback release. It gives our community a new look at this great book. It has recieved attention from major book awards. This book is an innovative way of offering an important history.

This event is free to attend. You may attend with a book ticket. This secures you a copy of the book for the booksigning line at the event. There will be available for purchase on and after October 15th.

The Book👇🏽

Longlisted for the National Book Award in Nonfiction * Shortlisted for the Museum of African American History’s Stone Book Award
The story of Reconstruction is often told from the perspective of the politicians, generals, and journalists whose accounts claim an outsized place in collective memory. But this pivotal era looked very different to African Americans in the South transitioning from bondage to freedom after 1865. They were besieged by a campaign of white supremacist violence that persisted through the 1880s and beyond. For too long, their lived experiences have been sidelined, impoverishing our understanding of the obstacles post–Civil War Black families faced, their inspiring determination to survive, and the physical and emotional scars they bore because of it.

Kidada E. Williams is associate professor of history at Wayne State University. She is the author of They Left Great Marks on Me, coauthor of Charleston Syllabus, and creator of the podcast Seizing Freedom. Williams has been interviewed on NPR’s Morning Edition and On Point, and her essays have appeared in the New York Times, Slate, and multiple scholarly journals. She lives in Detroit.

“Powerful and deeply moving . . . I Saw Death Coming bears witness to a dark malignancy in American history, one we have never fully excised.” —Los Angeles Times
“An unflinching and deeply compassionate account of what Black people accomplished, lost and fought for in resisting the war on freedom.” —The Washington Post

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Source Booksellers, 4240 Cass Avenue, Detroit, United States