No Master Over Me (1998)

"No Master Over Me" is a story of freedom, but freedom without equality. Students will discover that not all black people were slaves in the 18th and 19th centuries, but racial intolerance created barriers that affected even free blacks. Matthew Ashby was a free man of mixed racial heritage who lived in Williamsburg just before the Revolution. Although he was free, his wife and children were not. Students will learn how Matthew worked through the legal system to ultimately buy his family and ultimately free them from slavery. "No Master Over Me" is also the story of a black couple who lived in Indiana following the Civil War. The man was a professional and they were not slaves, yet they still faced racially imposed barriers.