Black thunder Book

This book had a huge impact on me, though maybe not in the sense you may think. Growing up in Richmond, VA, we had a years of local history, American history, etc., and the teachers always made sure to make Black History Month a keynote in our historical instruction. But somehow they managed to miss the story of Gabriel Prosser's attempted slave revolt. I had to go to an LDS university and do some extracurricular reading to learn about that. It doesn't seem quite right.
As for the text itself, Bontemps writes a straight-forward account, grounded more or less on his historical research, on various lives intertwined with the revolt. His depiction of Gabriel is memorable, as is the conflicted Ben, the vain Pharaoh, and a few others. The narrative alternatively races and slow almost to a halt, allowing you to hear the heartbeats of those marching through a swamp to grasp their freedom by any means necessary.
Most significant to me was the yearning I could sense from Bontempts pen follow, in a sense, Gabriel's example. This book, written at the end of the "Harlem" Renaissance (it was written in Los Angeles), and reprinted during the Black Power movement with the hope of gaining a little more recognition, this story is an analogue for struggle of many generations after Gabriel Prosser who still weren't quite equal.