Freedom for the slaves was short-lived. Hundreds of whites in Louisiana would see to that. Just as assertively, former slaves continued to fight for justice and secure their hard-won rights, often losing their lives in the struggle. Racial violence was more »
One hundred years after the battle at Milliken’s Bend, black veterans again found themselves fighting for basic rights of citizenship. We often think of the Civil Rights Movement as a youth-led movement. But in the case of Madison Parish, a more »
It didn’t take long after the end of the Civil War for the white leaders of Monroe, Louisiana, to enact repressive measures against blacks in their midst. Just two months after Lee surrendered at Appomattox, blacks were faced with the more »
Defining Moments: African American Commemoration and Political Culture in the South, 1863-1913 explores the efforts and insistence of African Americans to place emancipation and the end of slavery at the center of Civil War commemorative activities over the course of more »
Rough Justice: Lynching and American Society, 1874-1947 by Michael J. Pfeifer is an excellent work of both breadth and depth. Breadth, in that that he covers a wide span of time, more than 50 years – and a variety of geographic more »