All That She Carried
A review of

All That She Carried

The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake

Tiya Miles • Random House • 2021

Identity in a Small Sack

by David Meyer

US National Book Award winner Tiya Miles relates the heartbreaking saga of a young enslaved girl being separated from her mother and sold in pre-Civil War America.

 

The auction block meant terror for enslaved people in the United States before the Civil War. In this lyrical US National Book Award winner, Tiya Miles – MacArthur Foundation fellow, Harvard professor and author of The Dawn of Detroit – describes how one enslaved mother packed a survival bag for her preteen daughter before an auction severed their connection forever.

Comment on this review