I'm sorry that I read Tiya Miles' non-fiction book All That She Carried - The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family's Keepsake (#1,057) after I returned from Washington, D.C., where Ashley's sack is currently on display at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.
One cloth sack, handed down from an enslaved mother to her nine year old daughter being sold away from her in the 1850s, the circumstances embroidered on the same sack by Ashley's granddaughter in 1921, forms the basis for this moving social history aimed at a non-academic audience.
The materials that comprised the sack and its contents, the events which can be teased out around the bare bones narrative, and the implications for us, the readers, make for an enlightening and moving whole. You owe it to yourself to read this book and ponder its lessons.
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