Southern Black Women and Their Struggle for Freedom during the Civil War and Reconstruction
Southern Black Women and Their Struggle for Freedom during the Civil War and Reconstruction
This rich and innovative collection explores the ways in which Black women, from diverse regions of the American South, employed various forms of resistance and survival strategies to navigate one of the most tumultuous periods in American history – the Civil War and Reconstruction era. The essays included shed new light on individual narratives and case studies of women in war and freedom, revealing that Black women recognized they had to make their own freedom, and illustrating how that influenced their postwar political, social and economic lives. Black women and children are examined as self-liberators, as contributors to the family economy during the war, and as widows who relied on kinship and community solidarity. Expanding and deepening our understanding of the various ways Black women seized wartime opportunities and made powerful claims on citizenship, this volume highlights the complexity of their wartime and post-war experiences, and provides important insight into the contested spaces they occupied.
- Brings together a rich collection of essays from experts across the field
- Focuses on individual narratives and case studies to examine the life and labor of Black women
- Deepens our understanding of the various ways Black women seized wartime opportunities and recognized that they were responsible for making their own freedom
Reviews & endorsements
‘The powerful essays in this volume demonstrate that there was not one emancipation but many. Many factors shaped how Black women experienced freedom, and these historians bring the varying local contexts, historical forces, and individual personalities alive with rich detail and sensitivity. This collection is a must-read for anyone interested in the Civil War and its legacies.’ Carole Emberton, Author of To Walk About in Freedom: The Long Emancipation of Priscilla Joyner
‘Karen Cook Bell’s edited work lowers the volume of nineteenth century chatter to discern the small yet impactful voices of African American women. Many of these women are pedestrian citizens whose lives are not documented on the surface of voluminous personal papers and archives, yet their experiences speak to how they lived their lives within constricted racial, gender, and class lines from enslavement through Reconstruction.’ Ida E. Jones, Associate Director of Special Collections & University Archivist, Morgan State University
‘Accessible yet deeply analytical and textured, this collection of essays compels one to vividly see and hear Black women and children as they resisted and navigated the racial and political landscape in Civil War and Reconstruction America.’ Cherisse Jones-Branch, Author of Better Living by Their Own Bootstraps: Black Women's Activism in Rural Arkansas, 1914–1965
‘… an excellent addition to the growing body of scholarship on Black women’s history. This edited volume by Karen Cook Bell offers a nuanced examination of Black women’s experiences with family, freedom, sexual violence, and education during the Civil War and Reconstruction.’ Georga-Kay Whyte, North Carolina Historical Review
‘A dynamic and engaging collection …’ Lindsey R. Peterson, The Journal of Southern History
‘This collection of essays deepens our understanding of Black women’s lives, labors, and the complex realities of making freedom real.’ Shennette Garrett-Scott, The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era
Product details
December 2023Adobe eBook Reader
9781009093255
0 pages
This ISBN is for an eBook version which is distributed on our behalf by a third party.
Table of Contents
- Introduction: black women during the civil war and reconstruction Karen Cook Bell
- Part I. Emancipation and Black Women's Labor:
- 1. 'The proceeds of my own labor': black working women in the district of Columbia during the civil war Katherine Chilton
- 2. 'Please attend to it for me': single black women in civil war and reconstruction era Virginia Arlisha R. Norwood
- 3. 'I had time for myself': enslaved women, labor, and the politics of acquisition during the civil war Felicia Jamison
- Part II. War, Gender Violence, and the Courts:
- 4. Black women, war, and freedom in Southern Louisiana and Low Country Georgia Karen Cook Bell
- 5. Rape and mutiny at Fort Jackson: black laundresses testify in civil war Louisiana Crystal Feimster
- 6. 'I told him to let me alone, that he hurt me': black women and girls and the battle over labor and sexual consent in union-occupied territory Kaisha Esty
- Part III. Emancipation, the Black Family, and Education:
- 7. Making their place on the South's ragged edge: USCT women in Little Rock Kelly Houston Jones
- 8. Black women's lives and labors in post-emancipation North Carolina Brandi C. Brimmer
- 9. 'Remaking Old Blue College': Emerson Normal and addressing the need for public schoolteachers in Mobile Hilary Green.
