Seizing Freedom

Seizing Freedom: Slave Emancipation and Liberty for All
By   David R. Roediger


The structure of this book is straightforward and it makes its arguments without excessively labouring the points. It opens by demonstrating that the emancipation of slaves in the American Civil War became an unavoidable war goal for the North primarily because of the actions of the slaves in liberating themselves. The many ways in which slaves were able and willing to revolt, despite appalling suffering and brutal punishments, is inspirational today and was seen that way at the time. So much so, in fact, that the Civil War opened a period of revolutionary possibilities in American politics and society.

The emancipation of slaves was such a seemingly impossible attainment that, once it became reality, other impossible goals also seemed attainable. Among these were the rights of women to vote in elections and the right of workers to an eight hour day. For a time, Black, female and worker rights were thought to be interlocked and capable of being pursued and attained together. The universal feeling was that freedom would not be given but might be taken through struggle and the self-liberating actions of the slaves were taken as the model to emulate against all odds. Sadly, divisions emerged which increasingly separated women, trade unions and freed slaves into competing and eventually hostile camps. These mutual tensions are described in painful detail and anticipated the contemporary discourse about ‘intersectionality’.

At the same time, Reconstruction itself fell into disrepute. The counter-revolution was partly explained by the failure of either main political party to take the side of liberty. The Republican Party was more comfortable protecting the rights of property and business, while the Democrats took the side of authoritarian politics, racism, segregation, patriarchy and the interests of employers. The counter-revolution in the Southern States especially was also a popular and violent movement among the defeated white population. It targeted not only Blacks but Republicans and progressive groups and was expressed in extreme violence, while the Southern States imposed fresh legislative restraints on Blacks known as the Black Code, which corresponded to the earlier Slave Code. As women, workers and Black activists were driven apart, their separate goals were lost to sight for many decades to come.

This tragedy was also a vital lesson. The book does not blame the progressive activists for their failure in the face of such powerful counter-revolutionary forces, but it does suggest for the future that each is more likely to attain its goals in coalition than in competition and hostility with each other. Phrased differently, authoritarian politics are consistently racist, patriarchal and economically oppressive, representing a common enemy. Even so, the barriers in the way of that coalition are formidable and possibly it may only be attainable and effective within the context of one of the major political parties.

Of all sections, the most directly topical at the time of writing – thinking of Trump’s effective support for the Nazi marchers of Charlottesville in Summer of 2017 – is the account of the reactionary terror in the Southern States as Reconstruction reached its premature and cynical conclusion and the doors closed on such a promising moment in American history. It offers the label “terrorism” to describe events then, and that fits events today just as effectively.

"  ... as much as the Republican Party would prove crucial to the disappearing of freedom dreams, the ability to combine terror and political acumen on the part of white supremacist Southerners also proved crucial in defeating meaningful emancipation. The odd syllables Ku Klux Klan, and the oddly titled Grand Cyclopses, Grand Wizards, and Grand Dragons providing leadership to that organization, capture the popular understanding of such terror. Picturesquely robed and hooded disguises completed a mystique that, as W.E.B. Du Bois wrote, gave “glamour” to terror." [p190]

"But the Klan itself was preceded by less coordinated attacks on freedpeople in the form of riots and night-riding, and it was succeeded by more of the same. The casualties came at the hands of the Klan, the Knights of the White Camellia, the Knights of the White Carnation, the White Leagues, the Red Shirts, the Knights of the Rising Sun, the Order of Pale Faces, the Knights of the Black Cross, the Southern Cross, the White Liners, and nameless mobs and individuals. From the New Orleans and Memphis Riots after the war to the Ellenton, South Carolina riots late in 1876, the violence proved varied and mobile, but unabated; 20,000 casualties is a conservative estimate.

In some locales, deaths arrived by the scores, as at Ellenton and at the Colfax Massacre in Louisiana in 1873, in which forty-eight died while in custody as prisoners. Humiliations also came, as freedpeople with the temerity to vote, claim land, organize as workers, drill as militia members, parade as veterans, quit jobs, or stand up as domestic servants to their employers had to be brought to heel, especially through whippings and sexual violence. In some counties, the Knights of the White Camellia practiced what the classic history of Reconstruction-era terror called “nonviolent terrorism”—patrolling at night as if slavery had not ended and writing threatening letters—though the prospect of violence was what gave such intimidation force. 

The extent and variety of terror ought not to tempt us to view the racial and class violence as desperate, formless, or aimless. Instead, it was consistently focused in its targets and its goals, seeking the restoration of Democratic Party rule, the suppression of civil liberties and labor rights, and the assertion of control over the bodies and voices of those who had just won freedom."[p191]

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