From the Darkness Cometh the Light; or, Struggles for Freedom (Esprios Classics) (PB) (2021)

Lucy Ann Delaney, born Lucy Berry (c. 1830 - after 1891), was an African-American author, and activist, a former slave notable for her 1891 narrative From the Darkness Cometh the Light, or, Struggles for Freedom. This is the only first-person account of a "freedom suit" and one of the few slave narratives published in the post-Emancipation period. The memoir recounts her mother Polly Berry's legal battles in St. Louis, Missouri, for her own and her daughter's freedom from slavery. For her daughter's case, Berry attracted the support of Edward Bates, a prominent Whig politician and judge, and the future US Attorney General under President Abraham Lincoln. He argued the case of Lucy Ann Berry in court and won in February 1844.