Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and ReconstructionFrom one of our most distinguished historians comes a groundbreaking new examination of the myths and realities of the period after the Civil War. Drawing on a wide range of long-neglected documents, Eric Foner places a new emphasis on black experiences and roles during the era. We see African Americans as active agents in overthrowing slavery, in shaping Reconstruction, and creating a legacy long obscured and misunderstood. He compellingly refutes long-standing misconceptions of Reconstruction, and shows how the failures of the time sowed the seeds of the Civil Rights struggles of the 1950s and 60s. Richly illustrated and movingly written, this is an illuminating and essential addition to our understanding of this momentous era. |
Contents
The Peculiar Institution | 3 |
Forever Free | 41 |
The Meanings of Freedom | 76 |
An American Crisis | 107 |
The Tocsin of Freedom | 128 |
The Facts of Reconstruction | 159 |
The Abandonment of Reconstruction | 189 |
The Unfinished Revolution | 225 |
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abolitionist African Americans Alabama American history American Social History Andrew Johnson became black Americans black community black soldiers black suffrage cartoon century citizens citizenship civil rights colored Confederate Constitution conventions cotton court declared Democrats economic election emancipation Emancipation Proclamation equal rights Eric Foner former slaves Frank Leslie's Illustrated Frederick Douglass free blacks Freedmen's Bureau freedom freedpeople Georgia Harper's Weekly insisted institutions Klux Klan Ku Klux Klan labor land leaders Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper liberty Library of Congress Lincoln lived Louisiana Lynch ment Mississippi Negro North northern owners Photographs Division pictorial plantation planter popular portrait president Prints and Photographs race racial racism Radical Republicans railroad Recon Reconstruction Republican Party revolution right to vote scalawags schools segregation Senate slavery Social History Project society South Carolina struction thousand tion Union army violence Virginia visual essays voters W. E. B. Du Bois white southerners women wrote York