The Rising Generation: Gradual Abolition, Black Legal Culture, and the Making of National Freedom (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2024) tells a new story about the long history of emancipation in the United States as it follows the cradle-to-grave experiences of a remarkable generation of Black New Yorkers who were born in quasi-freedom after the American Revolution and reached adulthood on the eve of the Civil War. Professor Sarah Gronningsater examines the role this generation played in advocating for equality before the law, excellent public education, and the end of slavery nationwide. In a broad sense, this generation helped shape important changes in the U.S. Constitution as well as groundbreaking federal civil rights legislation.
Sarah Gronningsater, Ph.D. is a historian of the 18th and 19th-century United States at the University of Pennsylvania. She teaches courses on the history of American law, the American Revolution, the history of U.S. baseball, and American democracy. She has particular research interests in the abolition of slavery in the North and in local histories of New York State.
