Minnette Coleman Talks About her Book, The Tree: A Journey to Freedom

The Tree: A Journey to Freedom, an imaginative story based on history, legend, and a 300-year-old tree located in the Guilford College Woods

What's The 411 book correspondent, Luvon Roberson, sits down with author Minnette Coleman for a wide-ranging interview about her book, The Tree: A Journey to Freedom, and its relationship to the Underground Railroad.

The Tree: A Journey to Freedom, set during the period of American slavery, explores many issues related to the life of enslaved Africans including the connection between the Quakers and their role in helping to physically free enslaved Africans from the barbaric system of American slavery. The book also explores many questions including how does one become free in your mind within a system of enslavement?

One could say that Ms. Coleman was destined to be a writer, as her father was a newspaper editor, and both of her parents were poets.

But, Ms. Coleman does more than write, she is a great storyteller, as she weaves a narrative based on historical facts and infuses those facts with imagination to chronicle a story that is not often told.

The Tree: A Journey to Freedom is Ms. Coleman’s third work of historical fiction. She is also the author of The Blacksmith's Daughter and No Death By Unknown Hands.