Learn History Through Fiction: Racism 100 Years Ago: “No One Else Will Hire Us”

“The farmhands ain’t only men. We’re all of us Negroes too. Mr. Tapper is the only one who’ll hire us.” A quote from the historical novel Tazia and Gemma. After the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist fire in New York City, an unwed immigrant and her young daughter flee west in search of freedom and encounter racism in Kansas in the early 1900s. Read more about the book in NOVELS.

Blacks moved North in search of farm work, but many Midwestern farmers wouldn’t hire them
Tazia and Gemma (Vine Leaves Press) by Ann S. Epstein