More Than Chains and Toil is a probing and perceptive analysis of work in the experience of African American women. Even though forced labor was the essence of slavery, few have studied the labor of slave women from the perspective of women themselves. The author clarifies and analyzes the meanings that the women bestowed on their labors-meanings that constitute a rich resource of moral value for all who read this book"

-PETER J PARIS, Homrighausen Professor of Christian Social Ethics, Princeton Theological Seminary and author of Black Religious Leaders Conflict in Unity and The Social Teaching of the Block Churches