Rita Roberts is a writer and historian. She is currently retiring from her Professorship of History and Africana Studies at Scripps College, where she holds the Nathan Wright Stephenson Chair in History and Biography.

"Illuminating...expertly curated and contextualized, these letters simmer with palpable longing and fierce determination. Readers will be riveted." —Publishers Weekly

"In this stirring curatorial achievement, a scholar compiles letters exchanged among African Americans as the Civil War blasted away the scaffolding of bondage, hinting at an uncertain future." — Oprah Daily