Embattled Freedom takes readers into the 1800s, to a dramatic period of interracial history in northeastern Pennsylvania. The focus is the village of Waverly, Pa. Being a native of Waverly, Jim is especially honored to bring its remarkable black and abolitionist era to light.  In learning about Waverly’s runaway slaves and their white allies, Jim came to see how much animosity they faced on the home front, particularly as the Civil War bore down on them.
     His Embattled Freedom chronicles a tumultuous world in which ideals collided, politics was thunderous, and national destiny was at stake. You’re invited to enter that world and, as Jim states at the outset of the book, “consider its people, and ponder where you might have positioned yourself had it been your world.”
      Jim is a journalist and author of three published books: The Intermarriage Handbook (HarperCollins, 1988), Visions of Teaoga (Sunbury Press, 2014) and, now, Embattled Freedom (Sunbury Press, 2017). Since retiring as Religion Editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer, he has pursued his keen interest in history, with a focus on under-appreciated aspects of our nation’s local histories.
     Embattled Freedom is the result of Jim’s three years of research into local, county and state records, military documents, period newspapers, county and church histories, memoirs, and more. In learning about Waverly’s runaway slaves and their white allies, Jim came to see how much animosity they faced on the home front, particularly as the Civil War bore down on them. His book chronicles a tumultuous world in which ideals collided, politics was thunderous, and national destiny was at stake.
     Mary Ann Moran-Savakinus, Director of the Lackawanna Historical Society in Scranton, praised Embattled Freedom as “a fascinating history that needs to be shared.” Sherman Wooden, head of the Center for Anti-Slavery Studies in Montrose, called it “a research gem.”