Bibliographic Information:
Stanley, Jerry. Hurry Freedom: African Americans in Gold Rush California. New York: Random House, 2000. Print.
Plot Description: Hurry Freedom chronicles the African American experience of the California Gold Rush, from free Northerners to slaves brought by their masters. It centers on the life of Mifflin Gibbs, a friend of Frederick Douglass who arrived in California with almost nothing but over time built himself a successful shoe business. Historical data about the two thousand blacks who lived from the Bay Area up to the foothills reveal deep inequity in the judicial system and society despite the fact that slavery was illegal. Gibbs and his partners started an Underground Railroad in California, educating slaves and assisting them to acquire their freedom.
Quantitative Reading Level: GL 7.3; Lexile 1090
Qualitative Reading Analysis: This book is moderately complex for a middle school reader, mostly for the vocabulary which balances familiar and some abstract, historical language. Sentence structure is clear with only minor complexity in compound sentences. Pictures and drawings serve are supplementary for understanding the text. The purpose is twofold; to portray the life of a key historical figure as well as to profile the conditions of all black living in California at that time. Finally, the knowledge demands of the text are moderate in that students will likely benefit from having some background in history, specifically slavery, race relations and civil rights movements and leaders.
Content Area: California History, Reading for Information
Content Area Standard(s):
CA State History Standards Grade 8: 8) Students analyze the divergent paths of the American people in the West from 1800 to the mid-1800s and the challenges they faced.
CCSS for Literacy in History, Grades 6-8: 4) Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including vocabulary specific to domains related to history/social studies. 5) Describe how a text presents information (e.g., sequentially, comparatively, causally). 6) Identify aspects of a text that reveal an author’s point of view or purpose (e.g., loaded language, inclusion or avoidance of particular facts). 7) Integrate visual information (e.g., in charts, graphs, photographs, videos, or maps) with other information in print and digital texts.
Curriculum Suggestions: This book should play a prominent role in any study of the settling of California and the Gold Rush, offering students a more balanced perspective of the social atmosphere of the west at that time. Although the text is written at an upper middle school level, e Although the text is written at an upper middle school level, excerpts could be used as supplementary curriculum at the fourth grade study of California history as well.
Supporting Digital Content:
Primary Source photos: http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/calcultures/ethnic_groups/subtopic1a.html
Personal Thoughts: Having grown up in northern California, I am very familiar with the classically told history of the gold Rush era, of pioneers and their families travelling west to “manifest destiny.” This book offers a much-needed voice to the history of just one of the oft ignored minority groups that played a very formative role in the settling west – the voice of African Americans who worked thanklessly to support white gold hunters as they sought their fortunes.
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