Degrees of Freedom

the long version

"Spanning the half-century after the Civil War, Degrees of Freedom draws a rare picture of black experience in a northern state and of black discontent and action within a predominantly white, ostensibly progressive society. William D. Green reveals little-known historical characters among the black men and women who moved to Minnesota following the Fifteenth Amendment; worked as farmhands and laborers; built communities, businesses, and a newspaper; and embodied the slow but inexorable advancement of race relations in the state over time"--