This book provides an exhaustively researched history of black families in America from the days of slavery until just after the Civil War.

Pt. 1. The birthpangs of a world. Send me some of the children's hair -- Because she was my cousin -- Take root there or nowhere : I -- Take root there or nowhere : II -- Aunts and uncles and swap-dog kin -- Somebody knew my name -- To see his grand son Samuel die -- Taken from us by force -- Pt. 2. Deep as the rivers. Let not man put asunder -- Like it was -- Black, Jewish and Italian households in New York City in 1905 -- A brief note on late ninteenth-century racial ideology.