"Among the thousands of fortune seekers drawn west by the California gold rush of 1849 were many African Americans. Some of these black forty-niners were free men and women in search of opportunity, some slaves brought from the slave states of the South. A few found fortunes in the gold fields; others became prosperous merchants and businessmen in the rapidly growing cities of California - and others still found only hardship and disappointment. Whatever their material success, they faced deeply entrenched discrimination and prejudice. As he has in his other award-winning books for young readers, Jerry Stanley captures the sweep of a period in the life of one person. Against the backdrop of the gold rush, Hurry Freedom tells the story of Mifflin Gibbs, who arrived in San Francisco in 1850 with ten cents in his pocket and the goal of achieving "some big thing." Gibbs went on to establish a successful boot and shoe business. He also worked as an agent in California's Underground Railroad, helping runaway slaves to safety, and let a decade-long campaign to obtain equal legal rights by overturning laws that prohibited African Americans from testifying in the California courts. In the life of Mifflin Gibbs, Hurry Freedom tells an absorbing early civil rights story. In its account of the experiences of African American participants in the gold rush, it casts fascinating new light on a dramatic and complex time in American history." --