Join our A More Perfect Union Book Discussion with facilitators Joe Shepherd and Social Services Leader, Payton Barger! This book discussion group is a chance to explore, learn and understand more about social topics that might be of interest to you. This month's book pick is "All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake" by Tiya Miles. This will be part one or a two part book discussion. Free copies of the book (yours to keep) are available at Central Library's Upper Level Customer Service Desk for registered participants. The audiobook is available on Libby through the Indiana Digital Library. Physical copies will be available starting on January 8th. Registration is required. Coffee and snacks will be provided. 

About the Book:

In 1850s South Carolina, an enslaved woman named Rose faced a crisis: the imminent sale of her daughter Ashley. Thinking quickly, she packed a cotton bag for her with a few items, and, soon after, the nine-year-old girl was separated from her mother and sold. Decades later, Ashley’s granddaughter Ruth embroidered this family history on the sack in spare, haunting language. 
 
Historian Tiya Miles carefully traces these women’s faint presence in archival records, and, where archives fall short, she turns to objects, art, and the environment to write a singular history of the experience of slavery, and the uncertain freedom afterward, in the United States. All That She Carried is a poignant story of resilience and love passed down against steep odds. It honors the creativity and resourcefulness of people who preserved family ties when official systems refused to do so, and it serves as a visionary illustration of how to reconstruct and recount their stories today