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Sugar of the Crop: My Journey to Find the Children of Slaves
Sugar of the Crop is the story of an unprecedented quest to find the last surviving children of slaves. In a revealing search from Los Angeles to New Orleans, from Virginia nursing homes to Alabama churches, Sana Butler provides a fascinating picture of African American life and its legacy in the post–Civil War world. What she finds will change our sense of black identity in America. Drawing on interviews she began in the summer of 1997 with the sons and daughters of slaves, Sana Butler reveals how African Americans emerged from slavery with a deep commitment to the future and a powerful energy to make the most of their opportunities, large and small. Like explorers in a new land, freed slaves faced a new America with enthusiastic hopes and dreams for their children. Impelled by a generation that exercised political power at a rate never since seen in this country, the children of slaves were raised to be independent and often fearless thinkers, laying the groundwork for what would later become the Civil Rights Movement. As it opens up a new perspective on African American history, Sugar of the Crop is not just about the effects of slavery, but essentially about the power of the human spirit and nurturing strength of unconditional love. It will enlighten, haunt, and inspire.
242 pages, Hardcover
First published January 13, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
August 1, 2009
When I picked up this book at the library I was sure I would love it. After all, I love social history in general and oral history in particular: I couldn't wait to get started reading it.
I wish that I had read a few of the reviews here on Goodreads before I got my hopes up. Or at least paid more attention to the book's title: Sugar of the Crop: My journey to find the children of slaves. It's the second half of the title that's the giveaway: this is not a book of recollections by the few remaining children of former slaves, it is a book about Sana Butler, who happens to meet and talk to a few of those former children. For example, about fifty pages into the book Butler writes about one interviewee's mother being forced by her owner to roll naked in the snow, after which the owner "hit her with an iron skillet". There are many possible ways the author might have chosen to follow-up such an intense story, but Butler chooses that moment to tell us that when she was twelve she liked to twirl around in circles "hoping for lightening to turn me into Wonder Woman." By the time I had read about Thanksgiving at the author's house (the kids lie in bed while their parents do the cooking downstairs), as well as Butler's father's embarrassing habit of waiting until her bus or train pulled out of the station before leaving (a habit the author finds "smothering"), I had lost any interest in continuing to read. I'm afraid my disappointment made me angry, and each time Butler interrupted the stories of her subjects to tell us about her own childhood my frustration grew. There may very well be gems of oral history embedded in the mostly auto-biographical Sugar of the Crop, but in the end I was too irritated to look for them.
I wish that I had read a few of the reviews here on Goodreads before I got my hopes up. Or at least paid more attention to the book's title: Sugar of the Crop: My journey to find the children of slaves. It's the second half of the title that's the giveaway: this is not a book of recollections by the few remaining children of former slaves, it is a book about Sana Butler, who happens to meet and talk to a few of those former children. For example, about fifty pages into the book Butler writes about one interviewee's mother being forced by her owner to roll naked in the snow, after which the owner "hit her with an iron skillet". There are many possible ways the author might have chosen to follow-up such an intense story, but Butler chooses that moment to tell us that when she was twelve she liked to twirl around in circles "hoping for lightening to turn me into Wonder Woman." By the time I had read about Thanksgiving at the author's house (the kids lie in bed while their parents do the cooking downstairs), as well as Butler's father's embarrassing habit of waiting until her bus or train pulled out of the station before leaving (a habit the author finds "smothering"), I had lost any interest in continuing to read. I'm afraid my disappointment made me angry, and each time Butler interrupted the stories of her subjects to tell us about her own childhood my frustration grew. There may very well be gems of oral history embedded in the mostly auto-biographical Sugar of the Crop, but in the end I was too irritated to look for them.
May 1, 2009
I really, really wanted and expected to be blown away by this book. Breathtaking theme - the author tracks down and interviews living children of freedmen (think about that - their parents alive in 1865 and them alive over 130 years later - how many such people could still be around?). The voices and the stories of these men and women are powerful, and poignant, but here's the problem - you hardly get to hear those voices among all the author's interruptions to talk about her own family (itself a poignant and powerful story but too much the focus of a book that is supposed to be about her interviewees) and - worse - about the minutiae of her travels: missed directions, fast-food meals, credit card bills, etc. Who cares? I wanted to hear more from the centenarians and less from the author.
April 16, 2021
In Sugar of the Crop, Sana Butler details her search for children of the last generation of African American slaves. Interviews with the children and grandchildren of slaves, all now quite elderly, and all with compelling stories to tell. Butler, an African American herself, asks her interview subjects to recall their lives as the children of slaves, and discovers a unifying and inspiring humanity through several of their family histories told by some remarkable people.
These interviews are combined with a significant amount of reflection by Butler on her own family situation and how it compared and contrasted with the stories she collects. This melds nicely with the analysis she provides and the broader issues she touches upon, considering questions such as – how history is written and re-written, how families have changed and stayed the same, and the lasting power of love and of human relationships.
Butler has written a fascinating book, useful for those interested in genealogy, oral history research, and American history, and an invaluable insight into the family lives of slaves. This is a book that was written just in time, recording the memories and stories of a generation otherwise unknown.
These interviews are combined with a significant amount of reflection by Butler on her own family situation and how it compared and contrasted with the stories she collects. This melds nicely with the analysis she provides and the broader issues she touches upon, considering questions such as – how history is written and re-written, how families have changed and stayed the same, and the lasting power of love and of human relationships.
Butler has written a fascinating book, useful for those interested in genealogy, oral history research, and American history, and an invaluable insight into the family lives of slaves. This is a book that was written just in time, recording the memories and stories of a generation otherwise unknown.
April 25, 2022
Upon discovering at the funeral that her great grandmother was the granddaughter of formerly enslaved Americans, author Sana Butler's curiosity is peaked and she begins a quest to seek out surviving offspring of those freed. It takes great persistence and several years to track down, travel and interview a few individuals. As she gathers tidbits of personal history in interviews over the course of the next few years, she realizes that perhaps recollections are rare for a reason: Parents may not have wanted to share with their children and grandchildren the burden of anxiety and doubt that would likely be their legacy were they not to begin their own lives with a clean slate, ignorant of their ancestors' trials. Consequences are everywhere in our society. She shares some stunning anecdotes related from her subjects such as the 91-year old gentleman whose father and his siblings have different surnames, even his father's twin. He'd asked his father why this was, and was told that each child had been sold to different owners and had kept those respective owners' surnames once emancipated.
The book reads as a true journal as Butler muses about the social and emotional implications for families including her own who are growing up in the shadow of this cruel institution.
The book reads as a true journal as Butler muses about the social and emotional implications for families including her own who are growing up in the shadow of this cruel institution.
May 22, 2024
I really enjoy Butler's prose though it is true that not everyone will like it. She details her own life, her literal car journeys to find these places, her small encounters, her successes and her regrets. However, there's something about these journeys to uncover history that makes me feel as though it's a grand quest from a fantasy world. Except instead of slaying dragons, it's documenting the stories and facts behind those who have been silenced.
What really surprised me (as well as Sana Butler in her reactions to the interviews she conducted) was how positive and determined the interviewees remembered their ancestors of being. The pure excitement of getting an education during Reconstruction, the league of freed enslaved who traveled to inform others about the Emancipation Proclamation, the misconception that many formally enslaved coped through violence and hatred, etc.
The Notes and Bibliography is so well done, I think it's a wonderful jumping point to more reading and exploration.
What really surprised me (as well as Sana Butler in her reactions to the interviews she conducted) was how positive and determined the interviewees remembered their ancestors of being. The pure excitement of getting an education during Reconstruction, the league of freed enslaved who traveled to inform others about the Emancipation Proclamation, the misconception that many formally enslaved coped through violence and hatred, etc.
The Notes and Bibliography is so well done, I think it's a wonderful jumping point to more reading and exploration.
May 10, 2021
This book caught my eye when I was cruising the shelves of my local library. I'm glad I did. I was born in the North but educated in the Tennessee in the early fifties. My freshman dorm had a black janitor whom we students loved. I remember sharing my goodies from home with him. That's why this book looked interesting. I found the personal stories of many former slave families to be riveting. The author wrote from her heart about the lives of her own people whose elderly descendants she ferreted out, visited to get their stories and then collected them in this fast paced book.
The stories are heartwarming, at times disturbing, but all the while showing the resilience of the children of former slaves.
Hope Irvin Marston, award winning author of THE WALLS HAVE EARS: A BLACK SPY IN THE CONFEDERATE WHITE HOUSE
The stories are heartwarming, at times disturbing, but all the while showing the resilience of the children of former slaves.
Hope Irvin Marston, award winning author of THE WALLS HAVE EARS: A BLACK SPY IN THE CONFEDERATE WHITE HOUSE
July 19, 2009
I've been thinking about this book ever since I read it, trying to come to some conclusions about it. The primary problem with this book from my perspective is that the author spent too much time on herself, on her "journey," rather than on the subject of the book - the children of the slaves.
What I found fascinating was how little the former slaves told their children about their experiences as slaves. One woman explained that her parents didn't tell her about their experiences because they knew she'd have to work for white people and be around them and didn't want her growing up consumed with hate. The children of slaves then had the same philsophy when raising their own children. One granddaughter of slaves talked about being willing to integrate her local high school in part because she had no idea that she'd face such hostility from whites. "We all were like dumb donuts - that's how oblivious and unafraid we were." (104) "We just didn't know how much whites hated us and didn't want us there." (105)
The author also asks her subjects about why so many former slaves raised college graduates, while "today's poor..have a hard time keeping children in school of out of jail." "For a long time the answer given by black leaders and poverty experts has been that you can't expect low-income, uneducated, disadvantaged parents to be able to inspire their children to do better. I question now if that assumption is true...[Mrs. Wilson:] believed what was holding a lot of chidren back was not that disadvantaged parents couldn't improve the lives of their children, but that most didn't want to. 'Some have no fighting heart. If their children do equal that's okay. They don't strive for their children to do better.'" (103) This book has certainly provided a lot of food for thought.
What I found fascinating was how little the former slaves told their children about their experiences as slaves. One woman explained that her parents didn't tell her about their experiences because they knew she'd have to work for white people and be around them and didn't want her growing up consumed with hate. The children of slaves then had the same philsophy when raising their own children. One granddaughter of slaves talked about being willing to integrate her local high school in part because she had no idea that she'd face such hostility from whites. "We all were like dumb donuts - that's how oblivious and unafraid we were." (104) "We just didn't know how much whites hated us and didn't want us there." (105)
The author also asks her subjects about why so many former slaves raised college graduates, while "today's poor..have a hard time keeping children in school of out of jail." "For a long time the answer given by black leaders and poverty experts has been that you can't expect low-income, uneducated, disadvantaged parents to be able to inspire their children to do better. I question now if that assumption is true...[Mrs. Wilson:] believed what was holding a lot of chidren back was not that disadvantaged parents couldn't improve the lives of their children, but that most didn't want to. 'Some have no fighting heart. If their children do equal that's okay. They don't strive for their children to do better.'" (103) This book has certainly provided a lot of food for thought.
August 2, 2011
I was browsing in the library and found this on the Black History display. A very good book, with an interesting premise:
-------What happened to the children of parents born into slavery?
-------Did they grow up bitter?
-------Did they struggle as adults?
-------Was the slavery of their parents a secret, or source of embarrassment?
What made this book so interesting for me was how local it was to the area I live and work. Butler travels to towns in Western Kentucky that I drive through regularly. Its incredible to think that these towns that I travel as a "free" person in 2009 were slave towns for the parents of the children interviewed in this book.
I do wish Ms. Butler had written the book differently. Perhaps some photographs during her travels, to see the churches, the homes, the surviving children.
The book was at its best when the Ms. Butler focused on the accounts of the children, rather than the summary of her journey. It is clear that the creation of this book was a 10 year sacrifice and all-consuming effort, but the actual accounts of the descendants are really the heart and soul of the book.
-------What happened to the children of parents born into slavery?
-------Did they grow up bitter?
-------Did they struggle as adults?
-------Was the slavery of their parents a secret, or source of embarrassment?
What made this book so interesting for me was how local it was to the area I live and work. Butler travels to towns in Western Kentucky that I drive through regularly. Its incredible to think that these towns that I travel as a "free" person in 2009 were slave towns for the parents of the children interviewed in this book.
I do wish Ms. Butler had written the book differently. Perhaps some photographs during her travels, to see the churches, the homes, the surviving children.
The book was at its best when the Ms. Butler focused on the accounts of the children, rather than the summary of her journey. It is clear that the creation of this book was a 10 year sacrifice and all-consuming effort, but the actual accounts of the descendants are really the heart and soul of the book.
January 1, 2012
Really enjoyed reading this story.
Through his stories and examples, he explained to me the unspoken "rules" a black man during the Civil Rights years had to adhere to.
Through one of the most important new explorations of African American history in recent memory, Butler tells a profound story of our past and present from a perspective never seen before. Not since the Works Progress Administration gathered slave narratives during the Great Depression has a journalist conducted such in-depth primary interviews into this epic period in America’s history. Underlying the story of her bittersweet devotion to finding a generation everyone told her was long dead is Butler’s even more personal story—that of her father struggling with a rare cancer, holding on just long enough to watch his daughters grow up. Collecting priceless oral histories and seeking answers to questions about her own family tree, Butler offers a penetrating and controversial new perspective on the seemingly well known and documented story of slavery and its slaves. In so doing, she turns history as we know it upside down. (Amazon.com book review)
Through his stories and examples, he explained to me the unspoken "rules" a black man during the Civil Rights years had to adhere to.
Through one of the most important new explorations of African American history in recent memory, Butler tells a profound story of our past and present from a perspective never seen before. Not since the Works Progress Administration gathered slave narratives during the Great Depression has a journalist conducted such in-depth primary interviews into this epic period in America’s history. Underlying the story of her bittersweet devotion to finding a generation everyone told her was long dead is Butler’s even more personal story—that of her father struggling with a rare cancer, holding on just long enough to watch his daughters grow up. Collecting priceless oral histories and seeking answers to questions about her own family tree, Butler offers a penetrating and controversial new perspective on the seemingly well known and documented story of slavery and its slaves. In so doing, she turns history as we know it upside down. (Amazon.com book review)
August 10, 2009
Sugar of the Crop--- is an admirable first effort. The author was sadly in need of a good editor. I couldn't help noticing the "ed" ending left off several past tense verbs and "too" used when "to" was meant, among other errors. In her research she seems to have largely overlooked basic genealogy work that can be done through census research online. She could have benefited from working with a genealogist.
Sana Butler has a lot to say. She needs to write another book that concentrates on her subject (not the My Journey part). Her files must contain much fascinating information that would be a real contribution to understanding the post-war generation of freedmen. All in all I enjoyed her book, but was left hungry for more information. I learned a lot about how people felt and how they were treated. Yet I wanted more. Sana, please try again. Use a knowledgeable editor and take advantage of experts in the field. I'll be waiting for your next book.
Sana Butler has a lot to say. She needs to write another book that concentrates on her subject (not the My Journey part). Her files must contain much fascinating information that would be a real contribution to understanding the post-war generation of freedmen. All in all I enjoyed her book, but was left hungry for more information. I learned a lot about how people felt and how they were treated. Yet I wanted more. Sana, please try again. Use a knowledgeable editor and take advantage of experts in the field. I'll be waiting for your next book.
September 7, 2015
This is a perfect gift for anyone who has embarked upon the journey involved in African American genealogy. It is almost like a coming of age memoir of the challenges and personal sacrifices of human story collecting. Many elders are not anxious nor excited to gush out decades of memories for family members let alone a random stranger who boldly initially connects by telephone. The fact that the author pursued her passion and lived to not only tell her story but publish the book is commendable. My only wish was that there was a chart at the end to summarize the statistics. This would have been a nice touch to assist others seeking to run with the baton!
Entertaining read!
Entertaining read!
August 26, 2009
Good story, marginal story-telling, and very poor editing. Sana Butler makes some of the common mistakes of 1st time writers as far as crafting the story, (mistakes that a decent editor could have helped smooth out), but overlook it and listen to the few remaining voices of those who were actually the first hand recipients of the grace of a transcendent people. I appreciate Butler's tenacity in pursuing the history and the revealing look at how that history changes her perceptions, as it did mine.
March 3, 2009
Fascinating to learn about the lives of the first generation of freed African Americans. The hopes and struggles of their parents, and the infuence on their own lives and the lives of their descendants. At first I found the author's interwoven personal story a bit of an annoying distraction from the personal histories of the interviewees, until I found out about the connection between their stories and her own. Tearjerker.
February 7, 2014
This book was one of the first books I ever read (outside of a class) about race, slavery, and the effects of the emacipation proclimation.
It was a book that drove me to read a lot of others (Passing Strange, Invisible Line, etc).
I highly recommend it, and I'm very disappointed that I can't get a paperback version easily for my store.
It was a book that drove me to read a lot of others (Passing Strange, Invisible Line, etc).
I highly recommend it, and I'm very disappointed that I can't get a paperback version easily for my store.
March 26, 2009
I wish the author had included more of the interviews with the people she spent so much time tracking down. However, as the rest of the title says, the book is in large part about the author's journey, which was still interesting.
October 18, 2012
I wish I had did that. But in my own way, it may have not been slaves. But I have talked to over so many people in my family who were Grandchildren of Slaves. Same Effect. Inspiring. History was collected for the future.
September 2, 2014
An interesting topic and a book I'd looked forward to. But I didn't find this book compelling. I agree with an earlier review which said she wanted to like it, but it just didn't pull you in. The stories are interesting as well as the conclusions drawn. Wish I could recommend it.
February 2, 2015
I really wanted to like this book about the first generation out of slavery, but the author spent too much time working out her feelings about her father's illness and unfortunately did not find enough material to warrant an entire book.
May 12, 2009
Learned a few new things that I wasn't aware of; enlightening.
March 28, 2010
Loved this journey. Having spent numerous hours tracking down my own relatives and family history...I can truly empathize with her dedication and triumphant bitter sweet completion.
July 9, 2015
I was not sure that I would enjoy this book as much as I actually did because of a review. The journey was beautiful. The author was not afraid to show her naiveté.
January 5, 2010
Didn't have time to finish but will get again. The part I read was pretty good.
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