Description
Book SynopsisOffers a riveting and significant social history of black emancipation activism in Indiana and Illinois during the Civil War era. By enlarging the definition of emancipation to include black activism, Jennifer Harbour details the aggressive, tenacious defiance through which Midwestern African Americans made freedom tangible for themselves.
Trade Review“Jennifer R. Harbour deftly teases out everyday acts of bravery in the black communities of Illinois and Indiana in their pursuit of emancipation as a conscious, concerted, collective, and ongoing action. With vivid examples she reveals men, women, and children not only surviving in a threatening environment but also defining the terms of freedom as something greater than the absence of slavery. This is an important contribution to Underground Railroad, abolitionist, and Civil War studies.”—
Leigh Fought, author of
Women in the World of Frederick Douglass “Harbour skillfully presents the struggle for emancipation in a new light, one that illuminates the activism of black men and women and their extraordinary effort to carve out communities and civic organizations in the midst of white supremacy.”—
Stephen I. Rockenbach, author of
War upon Our Border: Two Ohio Valley Communities Navigate the Civil War “This pathbreaking study achieves several important goals by broadening our definition of ‘emancipation,’ redirecting our gaze westward, forcing us to consider the important role of women, and describing in detail the crucial role of black organizational activity in the antebellum Midwest.”—
Beverly C. Tomek, author of
Pennsylvania Hall: A “Legal Lynching” in the Shadow of the Liberty Bell
