African Americans, Death, and the New Birth of Freedom

Ashley Towle

doi:10.5771/9781666905724

African Americans, Death, and the New Birth of Freedom

Dying Free during the Civil War and Reconstruction

1. Edition 2022

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doi.org/10.5771/9781666905724
ISBN print: 978-1-6669-0571-7
ISBN online: 978-1-6669-0572-4
Lexington, Lanham Lexington, Lanham

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Abstract

This innovative book examines how African Americans in the South made sense of the devastating loss of life unleashed by the Civil War and emancipation. During and after the war, African Americans died in vast numbers from battle, disease, and racial violence. While freedom was a momentous event for the formerly enslaved, it was also deadly. Through an investigation into how African Americans reacted to and coped with the passing away of loved ones and community members, Ashley Towle argues that freedpeople gave credence to their free status through their experiences with mortality. African Americans harnessed the power of death in a variety of arenas, including within the walls of national and private civilian cemeteries, in applications for widows’ pensions, in the pulpits of black churches, around séance tables, on the witness stand at congressional hearings, and in the columns of African American newspapers. In the process of mourning the demise of kith and kin, black people reconstituted their families, forged communal bonds, and staked claims to citizenship, civil rights, and racial justice from the federal government. In a society upended by civil war and emancipation, death was political.

Schlagworte

Reconstruction civil war history Cemeteries African American History African American studies Civil War Funerals American history American studies US history Southern history abolition nineteenth century slavery

Chapter Expand | CollapsePage
i–x Preface i–x
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
1–12 Introduction 1–12
13–42 Chapter One. Let’s Go to Buryin: African American Civilian Funeralsand Cemeteries in Freedom 13–42
43–74 Chapter Two. To Repose with Their Comrades: African Americans and the Creation of National Cemeteries 43–74
75–100 Chapter Three. The Widows and Families of the Heroic Dead: African American Kinship and Domestic Economy 75–100
101–124 Chapter Four. The Invisible Army: African American Religious Life and Death 101–124
125–152 Chapter Five. We Are Killed All the Day Long: Testifying and Writing About Death 125–152
153–166 Conclusion: In the Cold Valley and Shadow of the South Land 153–166
167–182 Bibliography 167–182
183–190 Index 183–190
191–191 About the Author 191–191

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