Been Through The Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery

By: Kyle Lynch

When first assigned the book "Been Through The Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery" written by Leon F Litwack. I was kind of hesitant because we have all heard, studied, and watched various accounts of slavery throughout history. So when getting this book, I kind of had a locked mindset, thinking "oh what is this gonna tell me that I don't already know." But, little to my surprise this book brought my knowledge about slavery to a whole new level.
Leon Litwack, is a 81 year old professor at UC Berkley, who teaches American history. His passion for history started when he was in the 11th grade and ran with it, making it his major in college and went on to writing 6 history based books and becoming a professor specializing in history.
Litwack wrote "Been in the storm so long: the aftermath of slavery" in 1979. This book is about the struggle slaves went through to freedom. However, the book is more than black history, its explains the causes and effect that the civil war had on the freedom of African Americans.
We've all learned about the civil war at one point in time, the southern states of the US wanted to have their own nation and to make their own laws, however the northern states did not want this to happen because they believed that the country would be broken apart. While all this was happening Abraham Lincoln was running for president and had stated that if he had won, he wanted to abolish slavery. When he said that the southern states wanted to leave the union and started their own nation named The Confederate States of America. In April of 1861 President Lincoln Declared war when the Confederate army took over fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. Four years later General Lee surrendered ending the war.
After the war, the slaves who had suffered for a long time had been freed all of a sudden. The book tells the story from slavery to their transition to freedom, and how blacks and whites interacted with one another afterwards. the book also talks about the search for scattered family members, once they were freed.
This book isn't just a book with Litwacks belief's, or his takes on the story, the book is filled with interviews with people who were slaves, interviews with former slave masters, War diaries, letters. union arm records, Freed-man's bureau reports and other primary sources that make up the book.
Overall, I believe this book was well written. I would give it 5 stars on the quality, how it was written, the information that was in the book and just the overall book itself. Been in the storm so long, was the 1980 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for History Award. and it was also the winner of the 1981 National Book award. I believe that those awards were well deserved. Litwack is an AMAZING writer.