Seizing Freedom

Seizing Freedom:Slave Emancipation and Liberty for All

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Forceful and detailed account of the struggle for “freedom” after the American Civil War

How did America recover after its years of civil war? How did freed men and women, former slaves, respond to their newly won freedom? David Roediger’s radical new history redefines the idea of freedom after the jubilee, using fresh sources and texts to build on the leading historical accounts of Emancipation and Reconstruction.

Reinstating ex-slaves’ own “freedom dreams” in constructing these histories, Roediger creates a masterful account of the emancipation and its ramifications on a whole host of day-to-day concerns for Whites and Blacks alike, such as property relations, gender roles, and labor.

Reviews

  • Roediger’s spellbinding account of black self-emancipation and the array of movements accelerated by this ‘general strike of the slaves,’ as Du Bois put it, reminds us that it is never too late to take up the democratic promise of Radical Reconstruction.

    Angela Y. DavisUniversity of California, Santa Cruz
  • Roediger shows how this massive self-emancipation from below set in motion ‘radiating impulses toward freedom,’ promoting literacy for freedmen, a pursuit of family ties and a new sense of social motion … Slenderly packed scholarship conveying provocative ideas.

    Kirkus
  • Seizing Freedom persuasively documents the self-emancipation of the enslaved Black folk of the American South. A meticulously researched book, unfailingly attentive to issues of race, gender, and labor. It brilliantly brings together disability studies, race in the Civil War, and the disappearance of the gold standard. A worthy supplement to Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction.

    Gayatri Chakravorty SpivakColumbia University