The story of Milliken’s Bend is at its core, a story of Black resistance. And not just on one day, June 7, 1863, when a small brigade of newly enlisted Black Union soldiers fought fiercely against a Confederate attack. The story told in Milliken’s Bend traces Black advocacy, resistance, and freedom-seeking over the course of more than 200 years.

The backdrop of Milliken’s Bend originates in the Haitian Revolution of the 1790s. The spectre of armed Black revolutionaries, killing their enslavers and seizing political power would haunt white Southerners for decades to come. In many ways, the Haitian Revolution was the origin story for a persistent and lingering fear through the decades that the slaveholding South was always teetering on the brink of a massive and bloody slave uprising. The German Coast Uprising of 1811 in Louisiana, Nat Turner’s Rebellion in Virginia in 1831, John Brown’s raid in to Harpers Ferry in 1859, and the Adams County uprising near Natchez in 1861 all seemed to confirm the fears that the South was a racial tinderbox, lacking only a spark to set off a massive race war.

Resistance to white oppression took other forms, sometimes overt, sometimes subtle. The Civil War diaries of Kate Stone of Madison Parish, and Elizabeth Meade Ingraham, near Grand Gulf, Mississippi, allow us a glimpse into the multitude of ways Black people resisted their enslavers. Both women were white, of slaveholding families. Their diaries record words and actions of the enslaved which gave the white women cause for concern, anger, and worry, and not a little fear. Kate tells about one enslaved man named Webster. He had been, in Kate’s eyes, a “loyal” and “trusted” house servant. No doubt she thought he would be among the least likely to run to the Yankees. But when the opportunity presented itself, he seized it, grabbing a horse and running away to enlist in the Union army.

Another man near Lake Providence, Louisiana, waged his own private war against slaveholders and Confederates. His name is unknown, and his fierce courage all but forgotten. But he, too, was absolutely a Resistance fighter.

Of course, the heart of the Milliken’s Bend story is the battle itself, but Black resistance to white oppression did not cease as the Civil War ended. In fact, the legacy and lessons of resistance to oppression honed through the dark days of slavery, served as a foundation for efforts to secure the rights of freedmen during the violence of the Reconstruction era. The new amendments to the U.S. Constitution might protect freedmen’s rights under the law, but it did little to protect their lives as they registered to vote, ran for office, sought education for themselves and their children, and asserted their independence. Many men and women paid for their efforts and advocacy with their lives.

The “Second Reconstruction” – the Civil Rights era of the mid-twentieth century – the Black residents of Madison Parish and northeast Louisiana were still advocating for their rights. Zelma Wyche, a Black World War II veteran, came home from his war, and felt his military service surely would have secured for him the right to vote. But it would take a lawsuit and 15 years before his name was finally added to the voter roles. He went on to serve as police chief and then mayor.

This year, in 2023, the official theme of Black History Month is Black Resistance, according to the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. The story of Milliken’s Bend – and the many stories that surround it – demonstrate the many generations of resistance to oppression and advocacy for freedom in the history of African Americans in this country. Honor them, those of the past, and those of the present. Tell their stories. Work for change.