Freedom's Soldiers

Freedom's Soldiers PDF Author: Ira Berlin
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521634496
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
Freedom's Soldiers tells the story of the 200,000 black men who fought in the Civil War, in their own words and those of eyewitnesses.

Freedom's Soldiers

Freedom's Soldiers PDF Author: Ira Berlin
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521634496
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
Freedom's Soldiers tells the story of the 200,000 black men who fought in the Civil War, in their own words and those of eyewitnesses.

Freedom for Themselves

Freedom for Themselves PDF Author: Richard M. Reid
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 080783727X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 441

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Book Description
More than 5,000 North Carolina slaves escaped from their white owners to serve in the Union army during the Civil War. In Freedom for Themselves Richard Reid explores the stories of black soldiers from four regiments raised in North Carolina. Constructing a multidimensional portrait of the soldiers and their families, he provides a new understanding of the spectrum of black experience during and aftger the war.

Soldiers in the Army of Freedom

Soldiers in the Army of Freedom PDF Author: Ian Michael Spurgeon
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806147229
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 457

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Book Description
It was 1862, the second year of the Civil War, though Kansans and Missourians had been fighting over slavery for almost a decade. For the 250 Union soldiers facing down rebel irregulars on Enoch Toothman’s farm near Butler, Missouri, this was no battle over abstract principles. These were men of the First Kansas Colored Infantry, and they were fighting for their own freedom and that of their families. They belonged to the first black regiment raised in a northern state, and the first black unit to see combat during the Civil War. Soldiers in the Army of Freedom is the first published account of this largely forgotten regiment and, in particular, its contribution to Union victory in the trans-Mississippi theater of the Civil War. As such, it restores the First Kansas Colored Infantry to its rightful place in American history. Composed primarily of former slaves, the First Kansas Colored saw major combat in Missouri, Indian Territory, and Arkansas. Ian Michael Spurgeon draws upon a wealth of little-known sources—including soldiers’ pension applications—to chart the intersection of race and military service, and to reveal the regiment’s role in countering white prejudices by defying stereotypes. Despite naysayers’ bigoted predictions—and a merciless slaughter at the Battle of Poison Spring—these black soldiers proved themselves as capable as their white counterparts, and so helped shape the evolving attitudes of leading politicians, such as Kansas senator James Henry Lane and President Abraham Lincoln. A long-overdue reconstruction of the regiment’s remarkable combat record, Spurgeon’s book brings to life the men of the First Kansas Colored Infantry in their doubly desperate battle against the Confederate forces and skepticism within Union ranks.

Into the Hands of the Soldiers

Into the Hands of the Soldiers PDF Author: David D. Kirkpatrick
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1408898470
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 483

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Book Description
A poignant, deeply human portrait of Egypt during the Arab Spring, told through the lives of individuals A FINANCIAL TIMES AND AN ECONOMIST BOOK OF THE YEAR 'This will be the must read on the destruction of Egypt's revolution and democratic moment' Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director of Human Rights Watch 'Sweeping, passionate ... An essential work of reportage for our time' Philip Gourevitch, author of We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families In 2011, Egyptians of all sects, ages and social classes shook off millennia of autocracy, then elected a Muslim Brother as president. New York Times correspondent David D. Kirkpatrick arrived in Egypt with his family less than six months before the uprising first broke out in 2011. As revolution and violence engulfed the country, he lived through Cairo's hopes and disappointments alongside the diverse population of his new city. Into the Hands of the Soldiers is a heartbreaking story with a simple message: the failings of decades of autocratic rule are the reason for the chaos we see across the Arab world. Understanding the story of what happened in those years can help readers make sense of everything taking place across the region today – from the terrorist attacks in North Sinai to the bedlam in Syria and Libya.

Freedom Journey

Freedom Journey PDF Author: Edythe Ann Quinn
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 1438455380
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
The story of thirty-six African American men who drew upon their shared community of The Hills for support as they fought in the Civil War. Through wonderfully detailed letters, recruit rosters, and pension records, Edythe Ann Quinn shares the story of thirty-five African American Civil War soldiers and the United States Colored Troop (USCT) regiments with which they served. Associated with The Hills community in Westchester County, New York, the soldiers served in three regiments: the 29th Connecticut Infantry, 14th Rhode Island Heavy Artillery (11th USCT), and the 20th USCT. The thirty-sixth Hills man served in the Navy. Their ties to family, land, church, school, and occupational experiences at home buffered the brutal indifference of boredom and battle, the ravages of illness, the deprivations of unequal pay, and the hostility of some commissioned officers and white troops. At the same time, their service among kith and kin bolstered their determination and pride. They marched together, first as raw recruits, and finally as seasoned veterans, welcomed home by generals, politicians, and above all, their families and friends. “Quinn’s meticulous research and refined historical interpretation has allowed her to recover a uniquely enlightening chapter of nineteenth-century African American history in the North. By tracing the lives of Union soldiers from a free, black community in Westchester County, New York, we discover the commitment of these men and their families from The Hills to the eradication of slavery in the South. With notable sensitivity, the author produces a tale of black men who risked their lives and the security of their families for the sake of freedom. It is a story about conviction—poignant, inspiring, and persuasive.” — Myra Young Armstead, editor of Mighty Change, Tall Within: Black Identity in the Hudson Valley “As an in-depth case study of the African American volunteers from The Hills community who served in the Civil War, Edythe Ann Quinn’s Freedom Journey is a well-researched book that explores a much needed ethnic aspect of that war. For those interested in genealogy and local history, Freedom Journey offers unique insights into the social and cultural history of The Hills community, first settled in the 1790s. Additionally, the work contains a roster of the volunteers and thirteen historical sidebars that relate to the African American wartime experience.” — Anthony F. Gero, author of Black Soldiers of New York State: A Proud Legacy “Edythe Ann Quinn has taken a little-known community, The Hills in Westchester County, and using a comprehensively well-resourced and researched methodology, has written not only an enjoyable and engagingly attractive family history (individual and collective) of black New Yorkers from slavery to freedom, but as well the sacrifices that the community’s young men gave. It is the voices of those sable warriors that are heard through the personal letters, woven into the overall engaging literary style of the author.” — A. J. Williams-Myers, author of Long Hammering: Essays on the Forging of an African American Presence in the Hudson River Valley to the Early Twentieth Century

Freedom Struggles

Freedom Struggles PDF Author: Adriane Lentz-Smith
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674054180
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 331

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Book Description
For many of the 200,000 black soldiers sent to Europe with the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I, encounters with French civilians and colonial African troops led them to imagine a world beyond Jim Crow. They returned home to join activists working to make that world real. In narrating the efforts of African American soldiers and activists to gain full citizenship rights as recompense for military service, Adriane Lentz-Smith illuminates how World War I mobilized a generation. Black and white soldiers clashed as much with one another as they did with external enemies. Race wars within the military and riots across the United States demonstrated the lengths to which white Americans would go to protect a carefully constructed caste system. Inspired by Woodrow Wilson’s rhetoric of self-determination but battered by the harsh realities of segregation, African Americans fought their own “war for democracy,” from the rebellions of black draftees in French and American ports to the mutiny of Army Regulars in Houston, and from the lonely stances of stubborn individuals to organized national campaigns. African Americans abroad and at home reworked notions of nation and belonging, empire and diaspora, manhood and citizenship. By war’s end, they ceased trying to earn equal rights and resolved to demand them. This beautifully written book reclaims World War I as a critical moment in the freedom struggle and places African Americans at the crossroads of social, military, and international history.

Let Us Fight as Free Men

Let Us Fight as Free Men PDF Author: Christine Knauer
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812245970
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
Today, the military is one the most racially diverse institutions in the United States. But for many decades African American soldiers battled racial discrimination and segregation within its ranks. In the years after World War II, the integration of the armed forces was a touchstone in the homefront struggle for equality—though its importance is often overlooked in contemporary histories of the civil rights movement. Drawing on a wide array of sources, from press reports and newspapers to organizational and presidential archives, historian Christine Knauer recounts the conflicts surrounding black military service and the fight for integration. Let Us Fight as Free Men shows that, even after their service to the nation in World War II, it took the persistent efforts of black soldiers, as well as civilian activists and government policy changes, to integrate the military. In response to unjust treatment during and immediately after the war, African Americans pushed for integration on the strength of their service despite the oppressive limitations they faced on the front and at home. Pressured by civil rights activists such as A. Philip Randolph, President Harry S. Truman passed an executive order that called for equal treatment in the military. Even so, integration took place haltingly and was realized only after the political and strategic realities of the Korean War forced the Army to allow black soldiers to fight alongside their white comrades. While the war pushed the civil rights struggle beyond national boundaries, it also revealed the persistence of racial discrimination and exposed the limits of interracial solidarity. Let Us Fight as Free Men reveals the heated debates about the meaning of military service, manhood, and civil rights strategies within the African American community and the United States as a whole.

Soldiers of Freedom

Soldiers of Freedom PDF Author: Kai Wright
Publisher: Black Dog & Leventhal Pub
ISBN: 9781579122539
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
Looks at the history of African Americans in the Armed Forces, from Crispus Attucks at the Boston Massacre to the modern military life.

Duty beyond the Battlefield

Duty beyond the Battlefield PDF Author: Le'Trice D. Donaldson
Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press
ISBN: 0809337592
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
In a bold departure from previous scholarship, Le’Trice D. Donaldson locates the often overlooked era between the Civil War and the end of World War I as the beginning of black soldiers’ involvement in the long struggle for civil rights. Donaldson traces the evolution of these soldiers as they used their military service to challenge white notions of an African American second-class citizenry and forged a new identity as freedom fighters willing to demand the rights of full citizenship and manhood. Through extensive research, Donaldson not only illuminates this evolution but also interrogates the association between masculinity and citizenship and the ways in which performing manhood through military service influenced how these men struggled for racial uplift. Following the Buffalo soldier units and two regular army infantry units from the frontier and the Mexican border to Mexico, Cuba, and the Philippines, Donaldson investigates how these locations and the wars therein provide windows into how the soldiers’ struggles influenced black life and status within the United States. Continuing to probe the idea of what it meant to be a military race man—a man concerned with the uplift of the black race who followed the philosophy of progress—Donaldson contrasts the histories of officers Henry Flipper and Charles Young, two soldiers who saw their roles and responsibilities as black military officers very differently. Duty beyond the Battlefield demonstrates that from the 1870s to 1920s military race men laid the foundation for the “New Negro” movement and the rise of Black Nationalism that influenced the future leaders of the twentieth century Civil Rights movement.

Campfires of Freedom

Campfires of Freedom PDF Author: Keith P. Wilson
Publisher: Kent State University Press
ISBN: 9780873387095
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
Three related themes are examined in this fascinating study: the social dynamics of race relations in Union Army camps, the relationship that evolved between Southern and Northern black soldiers, and the role off-duty activities played in helping the soldiers meet the demands of military service and the challenges of freedom. By vividly portraying the soldiers' camp life and by carefully analyzing their collective memory, the author sets the camp experience in the broader context of social and political change.