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Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction

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Somewhere deep in the recesses of my mind I remember reading about emancipation and reconstruction in my high school history class. To the best of my recollection, the sum total of the coverage devoted to these issues in that high school textbook might have been a dozen pages or so. My ideas about these issues, formed about four decades ago, have pretty much remained with me to this day. In his new book "Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction" Eric Foner, a Professor of History at Columbia University, shatters most of my pre-concieved notions about these monumental events in American history. It just wasn't that simple. Drawing on a wide range of long-neglected documents, Foner illustrates how African-Americans actually played a much more pivotal role in the events that were unfolding than was previously thought. "Forever Free" is a real eye-opener!

Although the reality is that employment opportunities for the vast majority of African-Americans would continue to be quite limited during the period of Reconstruction I was surprised to learn just how many former slaves would go on to positions of responsibility and prominence during this period. At the conclusion of the Civil War large numbers of former slaves poured into cities and towns all over the South. Once there these black men and women quickly established their own schools, churches, hospitals and fraternal societies. Some of the men harbored political aspirations and many were elected to posts at all levels of government. Still others dreamed of owning and working their own piece of land. These people knew what they wanted. All over America the perception of Black Americans was changing and for the most part changing for the better.

What makes "Forever Free" a truly unique book are the six visual essays offered by Joshua Brown. Each of these essays includes important illustrations and photographs from the period. These images will impress upon the reader that as time went on African-Americans were being taken much more seriously not only by local and national newspapers and magazines but also by large segments of the public at large as well. I particularly appreciated the powerful images of the legendary Harper's Weekly cartoonist Thomas Nast. For the first time in American history, black people were becoming a force to be reckoned with. For an all too brief period of time the future looked cautiously optimistic. "Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction" is a thoughtful and well written book that challenges much of what most of us learned in school. In my view this is is book well worth investing your time in. Very highly recommended!

This is a powerful and insightful history of the emancipation of the slaves at the end of the Civil War, and the subsequent period of Reconstruction. Eric Foner contends that Reconstruction is probably the most misunderstood era of American history, as commonly accepted pronouncements about the period were mostly from hostile opponents of the sweeping social changes that the government tried to enact at the time. In fact, as Foner ably demonstrates, Reconstruction was actually an intensive program to include former slaves in the political and economic life of the South, and to quickly implement a wholesale replacement for the ruined slave economy that previously dominated the region. It actually worked for about a decade, with the emergence of many Black politicians and community leaders. But unfortunately the system was overthrown by the White power elite who yearned for a return to the system of economic and social subjugation, leading to the shameful Jim Crow system that was an embarrassment for America's democratic goals until the Civil Rights era.

This outstanding work of historical research by Foner uncovers the true issues behind the efforts of African Americans to achieve equal political and economic rights, and he also adds many insights on how deep outstanding issues from the Emancipation, Reconstruction and Civil Rights eras are still relevant to racial equality today. (Plus, an interesting bonus in Foner's work is the realization that the Democratic and Republican parties, when it comes to everything from race relations to fiscal policy, have completely reversed their positions since the late 1800s, and have effectively replaced each other.) Also, this book is very richly illustrated, and be sure to check out the essays contributed by Joshua Brown, who in an especially eye-opening way examines the representation of African Americans, and civil rights issues, in public art from different periods. The picture is often ugly, but this book brings the knowledge that extinguishes ignorance. [~doomsdayer520~]

... in Eric Foner and Joshua Brown's brilliant new book, "Forever Free". The U.S. has long heard the story of Reconstruction through the eyes of prejudice and misinformation, not allowing all groups a voice in the story . Foner and Brown attempt to correct the picture by providing an incredibly well-rounded view of this time, through the eyes of newly freed people who were promised the world, only to have it ripped out from underneath them.

Forever Free is really two books in one. Foner's story of slavery, and eventual emancipation, is the history lesson. He brings to the story great scholarship. Quite early on, it's evident that he has researched more than the usual story. By looking at authentic sources of information, such as black owned newspapers, diaries and oral histories, he successfully brings to light their story. As a slight scholar of this time myself, I was pleasantly surprised at the information he brought to light; for example, the slaves in South Carolina who created their own society after being freed, only to have to give it up immediately upon an ill-fated decision by President Andrew Johnson. Little gems of information like this are constantly mined throughout Foner's sections.

Joshua Brown's contribution is equally as vivid. He traces a visual history of African-Americans throughout the time. It is through his chapters that Foner's points of discrimination and stereotypes are emphasizes. Brown provides endless cartoons, photographs, and other art forms that serve to illuminate the book as a whole. To bounce from Foner to Brown is not disjointing at all; they have successfully married the two to form one united, powerful book.

Forever Free should be required reading for all history students, high school students, and teachers who continue to propagate the incorrect story of Reconstruction. It is clearly in Reconstruction that the need of our amazing Civil Rights movement was born. It is in those decisions made so recklessly, so based on misunderstanding and prejudice that endure today. As noted in the book, famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass had it right; "Peace among the whites" was paved with the shards of African-Americans' broken dreams of genuine equality and full citizenship.

As a result of Ken Burns's famous television series, "The Civil War" many Americans learned about this seminal event in our history. For all its virtues, Burns's series was properly criticized for deemphasizing the role of slavery in the conflict and for not focusing on the impact of the Civil War on African Americans.

Eric Foner's "Forever Free" is part of an ambitious project designed to carry forward the Civil War story with emphasis on Emancipation an on the attempt to reconstruct the South to produce a true multi-racial society. The book is part of an ongoing effort by the Forever Free Foundation to produce a film to make the story of Reconstruction accessible and understandable to a broad audience. Foner is Professor of History at Columbia University and the author of among other things, "Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863 -- 1877 a detailed scholarly study of this controversial period. He is assisted in this book by Joshua Brown, executive director of the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning at the City University of New York. In the book, Brown complements Foner's text with six chapters of photographs, drawings and other artifacts of popular American culture illustrating the changing perception of African Americans.

Until relatively recently, many historians treating Reconstruction saw it as a tragic mistake -- as an attempt by Radical Republicans to foist corrupt governments on the defeated South dominated by unscrupulous whites and uneducated African Americans and to take vengeance on the South for the Civil War. The African American historian W.E.B. DuBois was among the first to challenge this view with his book "Black Reconstruction" and Foner, and many contemporary historians, follow in his footsteps. While recognizing the failings of Reconstruction, Foner sees it as a noble effort to end slavery and to give all Americans, white and African Americans, political and economic rights and to create, for the first time, a society truly approximating ideals of equality. Reconstruction ultimately failed due to the war-weariness and indifference of the North and to resistance and frequently terrorism within the white South.

Foner tells a complex story simply and clearly. This is not a book that breaks new scholarly ground. The book is intended for a large public which, in general, lacks a detailed understanding of our Nation's history. Foner begins with a brief discussion of slavery in the pre-War South and follows this with a discussion of the Civil War focusing on President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation (January 1, 1863), its importance and its effect. But the heart of the story lies in the Reconstruction years, as Foner describes President Andrew Johnson's conciliatory policy of Presidential Reconstruction followed by the Constitutional Amendments of the Reconstruction years and Congressional Reconstruction's attempt to give meaning to ideals of freedom and equality. The story draws upon difficult events on the national arena and on complex events in each of the Southern states. Ultimately, Reconstruction was defeated, or rather postponed, following the disputed Presidential election of 1876 and the Compromise of 1877. Foner describes the reinstitution of Jim Crow in the South which aimed to keep African Americans in subjection. An all too brief concluding section discusses the Civil Rights movement and America's ongoing struggle to secure racial equality.

The photographic commentary, both in Foner's text and in Brown's essays, adds a great deal of immediacy to the book, not the least of which derives from showing the reader some of the popular culture of the day. Many will find this unfamiliar and fascinating.

The Reconstruction era remains a too-little known and highly controversial area of our history. It will encourage the reader to engage with the topic and to think about freedom and its significance and of the promise of America. The book includes a brief bibliography for those moved to further reading and study.

Robin Friedman

Absolutely wonderful. Those of you who are interested in the truth about our unsensored Black American History must read this book.

This accessible overview is so well done, you have to read it to appreciate it.

Mr. Foner has done America a major service in "Forever Free."

Read it!

This is one of the most important books ever written on American History. Should be required reading for the entire country. Not only a detailed historical review of the Reconstruction period, but also a story of crushed dreams, unimagined cruelty to millions of Americans and a grand national deception.

As a Civil War Buff, I never read very much about Reconstruction, unless it was an appendage to a book about the Civil War or the years following th Civil War.

However, this book opened my eyes to the true facts of the Reconstruction - in painstaking detail and with much informative narrative, Eric Foner, quoting specific individuals and presenting historical facts about Afro-American conventions and gatherings -- tells us about the part that proud Afro-Americans, newly and joyfully liberated from their former slave years, met, convened, conferred and became leaders in their community -- statesmen, lawmakers and governors of towns, and VOTERS.

However, this freedom, this growth, this liberty was short lived, as President Johnson and the Democratic party of that time effectively put an end to this, not only squashing the Afro-American right to be citizens, but to amend a Constitutional Amendment to further deprive them of their rights and liberty.

The North, as well as the South was to blame for this.

Illustrations, quotes, anecdotes and supporting documentation as well as related input from the early Women Suffrage leaders make for a fascinating historical document that should be in every library and on every reading list.

Forever Free, by Eric Foner, is a condensed telling of how African-Americans went from slaves to full citizens. While not as detailed as his book on Reconstruction, or even as detailed as his Short History of Reconstruction, Foner's Forever Free does a good job introducing the reader to the struggles the freed blacks faced after emancipation in the 1860s, and the hardships they faced through a hundred years of Jim Crow and intimidation, north and south, to the Civil Rights Movement of the mid-20th Century.

Forever Free is an excellent and detailed introduction to a new narrative about the Reconstuction period in the American South. For too long the American public has seen the Reconstruction largely through myths perpetrated by Southern Whites and given great publicity through such films as The Birth of a Nation and Gone With the Wind. Eric Foner is a prominent and leading voice in giving a more accurate account of the accomplishments of the Reconstruction and the struggles of Southern Blacks to form a government true to the principles of the American Constitution. His detailed stories of the period, its struggle for racial freedom and equality before the law, which was already losing momentum by 1876, is accompanied by images of American Blacks in the press during that time, showing how Blacks saw themselves and the general public saw them over the course of these developments. The Reconstruction was not a failed experiment. This book shows in words and pictures how the period laid the groundwork (in such measures as introducing public education to the South)for later positive developments in freedom for all Americans regardless of race.