The Civil War (1861-1865) was the catalyst for African American freedom and paved the way for African Americans to have a fresh start after more than two hundred years in bondage. With freedom, African Americans seized opportunities to legalize slave marriages, locate loved ones who had been sold during slavery, educate themselves and their children, and build new lives as freed persons. Although the Reconstruction period (1865-1877) led to the passage and ratification of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, the civil rights of African Americans were not secure or protected due to the rise of vigilante organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan and Supreme Court decisions that diminished the intent of the Reconstruction Amendments.
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Black Women During the Civil War and Reconstruction Era
Since the 1990s, two themes have emerged in the historiography of Black women and slave emancipation. The first theme centers on how Black women negotiated the transition to freedom under a variety of competing influences. The second theme centers on the violence that Black women experienced in their transition to freedom. Although numerous books have…
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Black Women and Emancipation
Emancipation in the United States stretched over a century from the revolutionary war to the end of the Civil War. This period was punctuated by intermediate struggles for freedom before the Civil War and more struggles to define and claim the freedom promised after the official end of slavery. Black women used the…