Anthologies of African American Writing

Freedom's Journey: African American Voices of the Civil War

"Freedom's Journal: African American Voices of the Civil War." Ed. Donald Yacovone. Foreword Charles Fuller. Chicago: Chicago Review Press / Lawrence Hill Books, 2004. 570 pp.

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What is at stake: Black abolitionism, politics, and Lincoln's election -- Where we stand -- Emigration and colonization -- The slavery of racial prejudice -- Race riots -- Black soldiers and the war, pt. I: What we can do -- The Black soldiers and the war, pt. II: The hate we face -- Equal pay and equal rights -- The Black sailor -- Black women and the war -- Emancipation -- Conditions in Dixie -- War's end -- Lincoln's death and the future -- The context of Black service -- Glory -- Out of the briars -- Remembering slavery and the Civil War in Missouri -- Remembering slavery and the Civil War in Tennessee -- Remembering slavery and the Civil War in Kentucky -- War, race, and remembering.

"The men and women represented in this book had the extraordinary opportunity of witnessing the end of a 200-year struggle for freedom: the Civil War. Gathered here are the stirring testimonies of many African Americans including slaves who endured their last years of servitude before escaping from their masters, soldiers who fought for the freedom of their brethren and for equal rights, and reporters who covered the defeat of their oppressors. These African American voices include the great abolitionist Frederick Douglass on the meaning of the war; Martin R. Delany on his meeting with Lincoln to gain permission to raise an army of African Americans; Susie King Taylor on her life as laundress and nurse to a Union regiment in the deep South; Elizabeth Keckley, Mary Todd Lincoln’s seamstress, on Abraham Lincoln’s journey to Richmond after its fall; Elijah P. Marrs on rising from slave to Union sergeant while fighting for his freedom in Kentucky; and letters from black soldiers to black newspapers. Each testimony is presented unabridged, allowing the full flavor of these voices to be heard, and each is supplemented with introductions and notes that provide rich context" (publisher's website).

A0542

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