One of the finest works on American slavery is Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made.Written in 1974 by the late Eugene Genovese, it is a study that still stands the test of time.

Genovese’s focus is on the culture that African Americans created during slavery. His book was notable at the time for its emphasis on black agency, making the men and women laboring for others the central characters, breathing life into them, cataloging their sorrows and their joys. How did people endure under such conditions? They created their own culture, their own music, their own faith and worship experience, their own cultural heroes, their own folklore. Genovese proves that black Americans in the antebellum years acted of their own accord, and were not simply passive victims. They were agents with their own narratives, though enduring inhuman and inhumane conditions.

One of the strongest insights I gained from this book was the recognition that the story of slavery in the U.S. is a story of remarkable diversity. Conditions, treatment, and experiences varied widely across time, geography, agriculture, setting (urban or rural), gender, the surrounding white culture, and more. It is so easy for us today to see slavery in extraordinarily simplistic terms. Our stereotype is based upon television, fiction, movies, and other sources that are less than accurate.

Genovese’s book brings out the complexity of slavery by examining its diversity. The experiences of slaves in northern Virginia in the 1780s would be dramatically different than the experiences of a later generation in the southern Louisiana sugar fields in the 1840s.

It was this diversity and complexity that I found especially compelling in Genovese’s work, coupled with his ability to delve into the finer points of slave life and culture. He brings these men and women to life – making them less anonymous, and more real.