In New York, Libertie reunites with her mother and meets Emmanuel.

During the journey, Libertie realizes that Louisa and Experience are lovers. Libertie, Louisa, and Experience travel east. She spends more time singing with them than studying and performs poorly in her classes.Īfter being told that she cannot return to the college, Libertie organizes a concert for Louisa and Experience in New York. She dislikes her classes and makes few friends until she meets Louisa and Experience, two music students whose singing captivates Libertie. She has taken on a young Haitian man named Emmanuel as an assistant. As Libertie begins her studies, Cathy writes to her about the hospital’s success. She stays with the family of her mother’s friend in a cramped house near the campus. Libertie leaves for an African American college in Ohio. When Libertie is accepted into college to study medicine, she agrees to go rather than stay and argue with her mother. She works as a nurse in the hospital, and the white patients treat her badly because of her dark skin.

When the war ends, Cathy must open the hospital to white patients to pay the bills. However, the women build a hospital where Cathy can provide aid to poor African Americans. Cathy and the other local women band together to provide help to the community, but Hannah poisons the other women against her. The violence eventually comes to their part of the world as angry white mobs burn African American communities. The outbreak of the American Civil War complicates Libertie and Cathy’s lives. Libertie realizes that she does not want to be a doctor, but she cannot tell her mother.

Ben kills himself and Hannah turns the local women against Cathy. Cathy responds by trying to cure Ben’s problems with medicine, but her experiment fails. Ben’s sister Hannah arrives and blames Cathy for her brother’s behavior. The local children nickname him “Ben Daisy” as he sinks into an alcoholic depression. While staying there, he begins to drink and pine for his lost girlfriend, Daisy. However, he quickly outstays his welcome and is sent to a lodging house in town.

Ben stays with Libertie and Cathy while waiting for his sister to arrive. One evening Libertie sees her mother help a man named Ben who arrives in a coffin on a carriage. Now Cathy helps escaped slaves as they travel north toward their freedom. Her widowed mother Cathy defied the racism of the era to become a doctor. Libertie Sampson is an 11-year-old African American girl who lives in New York state in 1860.

Liberte by kaitlyn greenidge