Turning Camp Slaves into Black Confederate Soldiers

2019 ◽  
pp. 123-151
Author(s):  
Kevin M. Levin
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Black Men ◽  
Lost Cause ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Accurate Information ◽  
Civil Rights Era ◽  
Black Soldiers ◽  
Confederate Army ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
History Of

By the 1990s, photographs of uniformed black men as well as pension applications in which the distinction between slave and soldier was sometimes clouded were perceived as evidence that there were large numbers of Black Confederate soldiers. In the late 1970s, the Sons of Confederate Veterans, became more aggressive in their claims that Black men enlisted in the Confederate army as the general public sought accurate information regarding the history of slavery. This interest intensified during the civil rights era as historians and Black Americans pushed back against the Lost Cause narrative, specifically the belief that enslaved population was loyal to their enslavers. The belief that there were willing, Black soldiers in the confederacy spread with the advent of the internet, as many people did not know how to vet sources. Additionally, films and other media blurred the distinctions between camp slaves and soldiers. Ultimately, false narratives made their way into textbooks and even historical sights.

Camp Slaves on the Battlefield

2019 ◽  
pp. 37-67
Author(s):  
Kevin M. Levin
Keyword(s):  
New Orleans ◽  
Black Men ◽  
Black People ◽  
Social Rank ◽  
Lost Cause ◽  
Black Communities ◽  
Slave Narrative ◽  
White Masculinity ◽  
Black Soldiers ◽  
Confederate Army

Confederates often wrote of loyal, hardworking, and brave slaves in their diaries and journals. The loyal slave narrative became a central part of the Lost Cause narrative. There are reports of camp slaves entering battle alongside their enslavers; however, having Black men on the battlefield challenged southern ideas of white masculinity and honor. Camp slaves were present on battlefields to transport the wounded and guard supplies, not to fight. Frederick Douglass stated that the south was enlisting Black men to pressure the Lincoln administration to recruit black men. His claims could have been rooted in his use of battlefield reports of armed black Confederates for propaganda purposes. Some free Black communities offered their services to stay in the good graces of whites but were not accepted into the Confederate army. Black people in New Orleans formed the Native Guard in an attempt to protect their property and social rank by demonstrating their loyalty to the Confederacy. Although the story of the Native Guard is often cited as evidence of loyal black soldiers, the unit was never considered a part of the Confederate army. As the war continued and the army became more desperate, serious consideration was given toward recruiting Black men.

The Capital

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Denson
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Heritage Tourism ◽  
Cherokee Nation ◽  
World War Two ◽  
Racial Oppression ◽  
World War ◽  
Civil Rights Era ◽  
White Southerners ◽  
History Of

This chapter describes the expansion of removal commemoration in the post-World War Two decades, focusing particular attention on Georgia's reconstruction of New Echota, the capital of the Cherokee Nation. While the project began as a local effort to promote heritage tourism, state officials applied a loftier theme to the commemoration, describing the site as an apology for Georgia's part in removal. The chapter examines the New Echota project in the context of the South's civil rights-era politics and as an example of American Cold War culture. It argues that the commemoration of the Trail of Tears offered white southerners a politically safe way to contemplate their region's history of racial oppression. The New Echota project included very little Cherokee participation, a feature that suggests the organizers assumed modern Cherokees were mostly irrelevant to their work in Georgia. The New Echota project required Cherokees to act as witnesses to commemorative acts conducted by non-Indians. It did not require them to participate as authors of those commemorations.

Discharge Requests

2019 ◽  
pp. 120-129
Author(s):  
James G. Mendez
Keyword(s):  
Black Men ◽  
Financial Support ◽  
Family Members ◽  
Black Soldiers ◽  
Military Life ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Return Home ◽  
At Home

Northern black soldiers and their families continued to support the Union effort. In spite of pay issues, discrimination and racism by northerners and southerners, the general hardships of military life, and the potential hardships for their families, black men continued to enlist in large numbers. Yet, for some families, conditions at home had become too hopeless. They had moved beyond the unequal pay issue as well as the army’s inability to pay their soldiers monthly. They had gone on as long as they could without the financial support of their men and had reached the point where they simply wanted their soldiers home. These family members asked Union officials for their soldiers to be discharged because the family’s situation was so desperate the only resolution was for the soldiers to return home. Often the requests were for discharges of underage sons, who continued to enlist through deceitfulness about their age.

Rights, Dignity, and Public Accommodations

2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 599-619
Author(s):  
Christopher W. Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Racial Discrimination ◽  
The United States ◽  
Legal Rights ◽  
Moral Issue ◽  
Civil Rights Era ◽  
National Debate ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Public Rights ◽  
History Of

In this essay I consider why debates over applying anti-discrimination norms to public accommodations have long been, and remain today, such a resilient presence in the history of the United States. I use as my starting point the most famous iteration of this phenomenon, the national debate sparked by the 1960 sit-in movement and culminating in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which banned racial discrimination in public accommodations across the nation. The battle over racial discrimination and public accommodations in the early 1960s illuminates the moral issue at the heart of the issue, the lines of argument that characterize the debate over how to define legal rights in this area, and the ways in which different legal institutions have resolved, or failed to resolve, the issue. I then move backward time, highlighting the continuities between this episode and the struggle over race and public accommodations during Reconstruction. The history of the civil rights era provides a useful framework to analyze the terms of debate from a century earlier, and it provides particular insights into the significance of the concept of public rights that Rebecca Scott has so effectively brought to our attention.

LEGACIES OF RACIAL CONTENTION

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 325-348
Author(s):  
David Cunningham ◽  
Ashley Rondini
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Human Rights Education ◽  
Civic Action ◽  
Institutionalized Racism ◽  
Civil Rights Era ◽  
White Families ◽  
History Of ◽  
Civic Practice

AbstractThis paper focuses on the ways in which past racial contention shapes possibilities for contemporary civic action focused on youth education. Drawing on the recently legislated Civil Rights/Human Rights Education curriculum in Mississippi—a state with an exceptionally charged history of racial contention—we identify barriers to curricular implementation in Mississippi public schools and draw on case studies of initiatives in two communities that have successfully overcome these barriers. Results emphasize how the legacies of civil rights era struggles interact with contemporary demographic and educational dynamics to enable two distinct forms of robust civic action. School-centered civic practice is enabled by communities characterized by strong civil rights organizing infrastructures, high levels of contention with White authorities throughout the civil rights era, and low participation in public schools by White families. Conversely, youth civic practice in communities marked by high levels of civil rights-era contention but significant contemporary White participation in public schools occurs through out-of-school initiatives. In both cases, however, participation in and exposure to civil rights and human rights education has occurred in racially-bifurcated ways that reflect the state’s legacy of institutionalized racism.

The Fruits of Moderation: Greensboro and School Desegregation

Prospects ◽  
1978 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 289-314
Author(s):  
William Chafe
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Massive Resistance ◽  
Civil Rights Era ◽  
Poor Whites ◽  
Federal Intervention ◽  
Folk Wisdom ◽  
History Of ◽  
Folk History ◽  
Martin Luther King ◽  
Broad Outline

Although barely two decades have passed since the modern “civil rights era” began, a folk wisdom about the history of desegregation and civil rights activism has already developed. In broad outline at least, the major themes of this new folk history are contained in the following assertions: (1) the white South greeted theBrowndecision with massive resistance; (2) this opposition was centered in violence-prone poor whites who would not tolerate the idea of blacks and whites “mixing” in the same schools; (3) more “enlightened” southerners, especially in the border or moderate states, did their best to counter such extremism; and (4) the plight of blacks improved only when John Kennedy became president, and in response to the leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr., initiated change in the South through federal intervention.

Draft Once; Deploy Everywhere? Contextualizing Digital Law and Brazil’s Marco Civil da Internet

2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (5) ◽  
pp. 431-447 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guy T. Hoskins
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Recent History ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Digital Rights ◽  
Internet Policy ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Internet Law ◽  
Effective Transfer ◽  
Digital Law

On Congressional approval in 2014, Brazil’s charter of civil rights for the Internet, the Marco Civil da Internet, was widely acclaimed as a template for national Internet policy elsewhere in the world. This was the result of a phenomenon I dub “draft once; deploy everywhere,” a pervasive belief in the universality of Internet law. This presumption underpins multiple charters of Internet rights drafted by digital rights organizations and policymakers. By showing how the Marco Civil was bitterly contested by blocks of powerful actors, the role played by Brazil’s recent history of dictatorship as well as its status at the margins of the global digital economy, I problematize the Marco Civil’s status as a global blueprint. This matters because without proper contextualization, the effective transfer of Internet law across national jurisdictions will be harder to realize, and their democratic virtues will prove more elusive.

Race and Rape Prosecution in US History

2020 ◽  
pp. 57-104
Author(s):  
Matthew Barry Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
Racial Bias ◽  
Civil Rights Era ◽  
Us History ◽  
Rape Law ◽  
History Of ◽  
Black Defendants ◽  
Post Civil Rights

This chapter examines the current disproportion of Black defendants wrongly convicted of sexual assault through a historical lens. It notes the US history of statutorily separate sexual assault penalties based on race of the defendant and victim. Throughout US history the legal definition and societal response to rape (and rape allegations) have been influenced by considerations of race. These considerations were consistently made to the detriment of Black defendants charged with rape. The chapter reviews how race, rape law, and prosecution have been manifested in different historical eras (the period of race-based enslavement, the period of Jim Crow segregation, and the current post–civil rights period) and the mechanisms of racial bias against Black defendants in the post–civil rights era.

scholarly journals Marco Civil da Internet: abrindo a caixa-preta da agenda de uma política pública | Civil Rights Framework for the Internet: opening the black box agenda of a public policy

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Guilherme Radomsky ◽  
Fabricio Solagna
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Social Networks ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Black Box ◽  
The State ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Political Opportunities ◽  
Key Stakeholders ◽  
Politica Publica ◽  
History Of

RESUMO O Marco Civil da Internet (MCI), aprovado em abril de 2014, foi resultado de um longo processo de elaboração e discussão que enfrentou a resistência de vários setores e o apoio de novos atores emergentes. Este artigo analisa a história da construção da lei e traça a emergência de um ativismo em prol de direitos na internet que ultrapassou a fronteira entre sociedade civil e Estado. O mapeamento e o estudo da rede de ativismo permitiu mostrar como os atores-chave mobilizaram o Estado, atuaram dentro e fora das esferas de governo, modificaram pautas legislativas, abriram e aproveitaram oportunidades políticas na formulação do Marco Civil.Palavras-chave: Marco Civil; Políticas Públicas; Movimentos Sociais; Redes Sociais; Agenda-Setting.ABSTRACT The Brazilian Civil Rights Framework for the Internet (MCI), approved in April 2014, was the result of a long process that faced resistance from various sectors and, at the same time, received the support of emergent actors. This article analyzes the history of the MCI and the emergence of activism in favor of internet rights. This movement transcended the boundaries between civil society and the State. The study on the activists' network shows how key stakeholders mobilized the State, acting inside and outside government instances, modified legislative agendas and took advantage of political opportunities in the  formulation of the Framework.Keywords: Civil Rights Framework for the Internet; Public Policy; Social Movements; Social Networks.

scholarly journals Racing through the Halls of Congress: The “Black Nod” as an Adaptive Strategy for Surviving in a Raced Institution

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
James R. Jones
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Adaptive Strategy ◽  
Political Institution ◽  
Workplace Relationships ◽  
Sociological Study ◽  
Civil Rights Era ◽  
Racial Boundaries ◽  
Additional Layer ◽  
History Of ◽  
Racial Lines

Although there is an impressive body of research on the U.S. Congress, there has been limited discussion about the central role race plays in the organization of this political institution. While some scholars have documented Congress’ racist past, less is known about the present significance of race in the federal legislature. Throughout the day, African Americans routinely nod to one another in the halls of the Capitol, and consider the Black nod as a common cultural gesture. However, data from over sixty in-depth interviews suggest there is an additional layer of meaning to the Black nod in Congress. From the microlevel encounters, I observed and examined, I interpret the nod as more than a gesture that occurs in a matter of seconds between colleagues or even among perfect strangers in the halls of Congress. The Black nod encompasses and is shaped by labor organized along racial lines, a history of racial subordination, and powerful perceptions of race in the post-Civil-Rights era on the meso-, and macrolevels. Using this interpretive foundation, this article will show how the nod is an adaptive strategy of Black staffers that renders them visible in an environment where they feel socially invisible. The nod becomes an external expression of their racialized professional identity. I argue that the congressional workplace is a raced political institution and that the microlevel encounters I observed delineate and reproduce its racial boundaries. This article represents perhaps the first sociological study of Congress and provides an unprecedented view into its inner workings and the social dimensions that organize workplace relationships.

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