The Afro-American and the Second World War

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Herbert C. Covey and Dwight Eisnach

Drawing from narratives of former slaves collected as part of the Federal Writers Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), How the Slaves Saw the Civil War presents first-hand testimony in the former slaves' own words about their lives before, during, and following the Civil War. By examining these remarkable and unique narratives, we can better understand what life was truly like for slaves. Because most slaves could not read or write, their perspective on the unfolding history of the war had been relatively unknown until these narratives were originally collected in the 1930s and 1940s. This book extracts the most cogent and compelling tales from the documentation of former slaves' seldom-heard voices on the events leading up to, during, and following the war. The works's two introductory chapters focus on the WPA's narratives and living conditions under slavery. The remaining chapters address key topics such as slave loyalties to either or both sides of the conflict, key battles, participation in the Union and /or Confederate armies, the day Union forces came, slave contact with key historical figures, and emancipation--and what came after. Complementing the text itself, Herbert C. Covey and Dwight Eisnach have included a selection of fascinating images of the time, as well as providing an extensive bibliography of other reliable sources appropriate for further research by general readers, academics specializing in African American history, and Civil War buffs alike. -- Inside jacket flaps.

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Sanford Wexler

Uses speeches, articles, and other writings of those involved to trace the history of the civil rights movement in the United States, primarily from 1954 to 1965.

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Martin Luther King, Jr

In 1963, Birmingham, Alabama, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. launched the Civil Rights movement and demonstrated to the world the power of nonviolent direct action with this letter from Birmingham Jail. Why We Can't Wait recounts not only the Birmingham campaign, but also examines the history of the civil rights struggle and the tasks that future generations must accomplish to bring about full equality for African Americans. Dr. King's eloquent analysis of these events propelled the Civil Rights movement from lunch counter sit-ins and prayer marches to the forefront of the American consciousness.

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Charles L. Flynn, Jr

The society of the postbellum South was built upon two interweaving but ultimately irreconcilable systems: a racist caste system and an economic class system. The caste system was supposed to assure that all whites would be equals above the underclass of black laborers. But the class system that emerged in the years after the war placed lower-class whites in the same economic position as the emancipated slaves -- a situation totally at odds with prevailing white ideology. In White Land, Black Labor, Charles Flynn examines the interplay of the caste and class systems of Reconstruction Georgia, revealing how the efforts of both the planters and poorer whites to retain blacks in a position of subservience assured that in this state -- as in the South as a whole -- there would be little significant economic progress until well into the next century. The caste faith of the white Georgians encouraged landowning employers to seek increased exploitation rather than economic growth; at the same time, it motivated landless whites to focus their energies on the greater subordination of black laborers rather than on achieving equality with wealthier whites. Despite the facade of southern caste faith, the constitutional amendments adopted during Reconstruction assured that blacks could not legally be treated as a separate laboring class. As a result, the measures employed by the planters to increase their control over the black laborers applied to a growing number of landless whites as well. With blacks more free and whites more oppressed than the prevailing social ideology deemed appropriate, the distinction between the system of class division among whites and the caste barrier that separated blacks and whites began to fracture -- leading to political dissent in the nineteenth century and setting the stage for the demagogue politicians of the twentieth century.