A House Built by Slaves: African American Visitors to the Lincoln White House

Abstract

Railroad communities of these two cities. All in all, Broyld’s work furthers Black diasporic studies and the historiography of nineteenth-century African American history. His extensive usage of primary sources unearths the lives of African Americans and offers greater insight into their experiences in these two cities. The U.S.-Canadian border was not a rigid line of division but a fluid entity which enabled Blacks to manipulate borders and exercise greater autonomy to ameliorate their lives. Borderland Blacks sheds light on the ways in which transnational identities and relationships were maintained and upheld in the hopes of collective liberation for Blacks. Broyld’s research also underscores the need for further investigation into the international dynamics of the Underground Railroad and the freedom networks beyond Canada.