Those interested in Jackson County history, Florida history, and African American history should enjoy T. Thomas Fortune's memoir "After War Times," available in a single volume released earlier this month by the University of Alabama Press. The introduction is by Prof. Dawn Herd-Clark of Fort Valley State University with an afterword by Prof. Tameka Bradley Hobbs of Florida Memorial University. I edited and annotated the memoir and added a brief editor's note. The book is available through Univ. of Alabama Press directly at http://www.uapress.ua.edu/product/After-War-Times,5862.aspx or through amazon.com: After War Times: An African American Childhood in Reconstruction-Era Florida. T. Thomas Fortune was born into slavery and lived his first dozen years in Jackson County, Florida. After several years in Jacksonville followed by education at Howard University in Washington DC, Fortune launched a career in New York as a journalist, newspaper editor, and activist. He was later lauded as the dean of African American journalists. This memoir and accompanying essays are particularly appropriate for high school and college students.
