Books & Publications > Comments on The Southern Debate over Slavery

This splendid book, full of human-interest accounts of escaped slaves, does more than demonstrate the prevalence of slave resistance by running away. By reflecting a bright, harsh light on the institution of bondage, Runaway Slaves expands our knowledge and understanding of slavery in the United States.
-- James M. McPherson, Professor of History, Princeton University, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Battle Cry of Freedom

Meticulous, compassionate, and illuminating; John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger in Runaway Slaves have bequeathed to all Americans a modern masterpiece about White power, domination and resistance, and the Black will to be free.
--Darlene Clark Hine, co-author, A Shining Thread of Hope: The History of Black Women in America

At a time when some revisionists have attempted to excuse the horror and immorality of the existence of slavery in this nation's past, this thorough study significantly expands the vivid history of the working men, women, and children who were once held in bondage and soundly documents the struggle of those Americans for freedom, justice and human dignity.
-- Linda Chavez-Thompson, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President

A neglected dimension of slavery has finally been researched and revealed in full.
-- Sterling Stuckey, Professor of History, University of California, Riverside

By any manner of reckoning, John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger have produced an extraordinary book about slavery that addresses, authoritatively and persuasively, the basic nature of the slave system.... The overwhelming evidence presented in this richly detailed study should dispel, once and for all, the notion that runaway slaves were mere aberrations and that the slave South was a tranquil society inhabited by benevolent white masters and happy, loyal, good-natured blacks contented with their lot as slaves.
--Willard B. Gatewood, Almuni Distinguished Professor of History, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville

One hesitates to use the word definitive for a new book, but Runaway Slaves merits the adjective. Franklin and Schweninger have produced a major contribution that not only enhances understanding of slavery... but deepens understanding of the antebellum South generally... Written engagingly and based on massive research... this book belongs in every college library as well as the personal collection of anyone who admires the historical art at its best.
-- T. D. Hamm, Choice, September 1999