Barbara Boyle Torrey and Clara Myrick Green
From an enslaved African American purchasing his freedom to a 20th-century eminent domain land seizure, Between Freedom and Equality: The History of an African American Family in Washington, DC is a dramatic story of freedom amid slavery and its aftermath.
Authors Barbara Boyle Torrey and Clara Myrick Green trace six generations in one Washington family, beginning with Capt. George Pointer, a Maryland man born enslaved in 1773 who purchased his freedom 20 years later while working for George Washington’s Potomac Company.
The land in Northwest DC where four generations of Pointer’s descendants later farmed was briefly engulfed by the Civil War and then seized by eminent domain for the expanding suburb of Chevy Chase, DC—specifically, to build Lafayette Elementary School for white children. Today efforts are underway in Chevy Chase to reckon with this history and further awareness of the legacy of George Pointer and his descendants. Torrey and Green’s thorough research and stirring narrative provide unique insight across two centuries of DC history.
Join Washington History Editorial Board member and co-author of Chocolate City Chris Myers Asch and authors of the forthcoming Between Freedom and Equality: The History of an African American Family in Washington, DC Barbara Boyle Torrey and Clara Myrick Green for a conversation about the Pointer family’s legacy.
This talk is part of a series discussing DC history books of distinction, led by editors of Washington History.