Lifting the chains

• Verfasst von: Chafe, William H. [VerfasserIn]
• Titel: Lifting the chains
• Titelzusatz: the Black freedom struggle since Reconstruction
• Verf.angabe: William H. Chafe
• Verlagsort: New York, NY
• Verlag: Oxford University Press
• Jahr: 2023
• Umfang: 1 online resource (347 pages)
• Gesamttitel/Reihe: Oxford scholarship online
• Fussnoten: Also issued in print: 2023. - Includes bibliographical references and index. - Description based on online resource; title from home page (viewed on July 21, 2023)
• ISBN: 978-0-19-761646-8
• ISBN: 978-0-19-761648-2
• DOI: doi:10.1093/oso/9780197616451.001.0001
• Datenträger: Online-Ressource
• Sprache: eng
• Bibliogr. Hinweis: Erscheint auch als : Druck-Ausgabe
• Sach-SW: History
• Sach-SW: History of the Americas
• K10plus-PPN: 1858271673
• K10plus-PPN:
  Universitätsbibliothek
• Lokale URL UB: Zum Volltext

Abstract

'Lifting the Chains' is a history of the Black experience in America since the Civil War, told by one of the most distinguished historians of modern America, William H. Chafe. Chafe highlights the role of all-black institutions - especially the churches, lodges, local gangs, neighbourhood women's groups, and the Black college clubs that gathered at local pool halls - that talked up the issues, examined different courses of action, and then put their lives on the line to make change happen. Drawing on the tremendous oral history archives at Duke that Chafe founded and nurtured, the book includes unpublished oral histories of Black Activism.

Abstract

"It was 1863. Abraham Galloway--son of a white father and an enslaved mother--stood next to the Army recruiter, holding a gun to the soldier's head. He had escaped slavery in the hold--of a ship four years earlier, fleeing to Canada, then became a master spy for the Union Army. Now, in the days after Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, Galloway had returned to North Carolina, becoming the leader of more than 4,000 escaped slaves who had joined him in New Bern, North Carolina. We will join the Union Army, Galloway told the recruiter, but only on our terms. Galloway then laid down his demands: the right to vote; the right to serve on juries; the right to run for elected office; equal pay for Black and white soldiers; schools for their children; jobs for women; and care for their families. In retrospect, the demands seem revolutionary. But not so, given the roles that Blacks were playing in the war. Hence, the recruiter said yes. Within days, 10,000 Blacks had joined Galloway to enlist in the Union Army. Those soldiers--along with nearly 200,000 other Blacks who enlisted--proved pivotal to destroying the system of plantation slavery. Soon, they would inaugurate the quest to create a truly democratic America"--