The New York Vigilance Committee was organized by free blacks working with white abolitionists to protect blacks from kidnappers and slave catchers on the streets. Soon such committees proliferated in the North, and began a collaboration known as the underground railroad. Until now, their stories have remained largely unknown. Building on fresh evidence, Eric Foner elevates the underground railroad from folklore to history.

The Declaration of Independence announced equality as an American ideal, but it took the Civil War and the subsequent adoption of three constitutional amendments to establish that ideal as American law. The author of The Fiery Trial presents a timely history of the constitutional changes that built or compromised equality within America?s foundation, documenting alarming parallels between the Jim Crow era and the present day.