Boston Athenæum

February 17, 2016 at the Boston Athenæum. In this talk, Adam Rothman will share excerpts from Beyond Freedom’s Reach, the true story of one woman’s quest to rescue her children from bondage. In the gripping, meticulously researched account, Adam Rothman lays bare the mayhem of emancipation during and after the Civil War. After Union forces captured New Orleans in 1862, the slave-owning De Harts fled to Havana, taking Rose Herera’s three children with them. When Mary De Hart returned to New Orleans in 1865, she was surprised to find herself taken into custody as a kidnapper. As Rothman will share, the case of Rose Herera’s abducted children reveals to the reader the prospects and limits of justice that existed during Reconstruction. In his book and during the talk, Rothman will offer a poignant reflection on the tangled politics of slavery and the hazards that were faced by so many Americans on the hard road to freedom.