From Slave to Statesman ― The Life of Educator, Editor, and Civil Rights Activist Willis M. Carter of Virginia

In the 1980s, Willis McGlascoe Carter's handwritten memoir turned up unexpectedly in a mid-western antique shop. Its twenty-two pages told a fascinating story of a man born into slavery in Virginia who, at the onset of freedom, attended school, became a teacher, started a family, and edited a newspaper. Even his life as a slave seemed exceptional, as he described how his owner treated him and his family with respect and care. Tucked into its back pages, the memoir included a handwritten tribute to Carter, written by his fellow teachers upon his death. Robert Heinrich and Deborah Harding's From Slave to Statesman tells the extraordinary story of Willis M. Carter's life. Using Carter's brief memoir -- one of the few extant narratives penned by ex-slaves after emancipation -- as a starting point, Heinrich and Harding fill in the abundant gaps in his life, providing unique insight along the way into many of the most important events and transformations in this period of southern history.

Carter was born a slave in 1852 to owners who nurtured his educational ambitions and taught him to read and write. Upon gaining freedom, like many former slaves, Carter traveled in search of employment and education. He journeyed as far as Rhode Island, and then moved to Washington, DC, where he attended night school before entering and graduating from Wayland Seminary. He continued on to Staunton, Virginia, where he became a teacher and principal in the city's African American schools, the editor of the Staunton Tribune, an advocate for his community in local politics, and activist in the Republican Party. Carter served as alternate delegate to the 1896 Republican National Convention; later he helped lead the battle against Virginia's new state constitution, which white supremacists sought to use as a means to disfranchise blacks. As part of that campaign, Carter travelled to Richmond to address delegates at the constitutional convention, serving as chairman of a committee that advocated voting rights and equal public education for African Americans. Although Carter did not live to see Virginia adopt its new "Jim Crow" constitution, he died knowing that he had done all in his power to stop it. From Slave to Statesman justly resurrects Carter's all but forgotten story, adding immeasurably to our understanding of the journey that he and men like him took out of slavery into a world of incredible promise and powerful disappointment.

Deborah Harding is an art and antiques research specialist, the former editor for several national magazines, and the author of four books on American folk art.