Freedom’s Lawmakers: A Directory of Black Officeholders During Reconstruction - Softcover

Foner, Eric

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0807120820 ISBN 13: 9780807120828

Publisher: LSU Press, 1996

Synopsis

With Freedom's Lawmakers, Eric Foner has assembled the first comprehensive directory of the over 1,500 African Americans who held political office in the South during the Reconstruction era. He has compiled an impressive amount of information about the antebellum status, occupations, property ownership, and military service of these officials -- who range from U.S. congressmen to local justices of the peace and constables. This revised paperback edition also contains new material on forty-five officials who were not included in the first edition.In his Introduction, Foner ably analyzes and interprets the roles of the black American officeholders. Concise biographies, in alphabetical order, trace the life histories of individuals -- many previously unknown -- who played important parts in the politics of the period. This useful and informative volume also includes an index by state, by occupation, by office during Reconstruction, by birth status, and by topic.

About this title

Review:

Between 1865 and 1876, about two thousand blacks held elective and appointive offices in the South. A few, such as the senator from Mississippi Blanche K. Bruce, are well known, but most have languished in obscurity, omitted from official state histories. Prize-winning historian Eric Foner profiles more than 1,500 black legislators, state officials, sheriffs, justices of the peace, and constables. Essential reading for anyone interested in the scope of black achievement during Reconstruction, Freedom's Lawmakers includes biographical sketches of each officeholder (some necessarily brief because so little is known) and many photographs.

About the Author:

Eric Foner is DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University. He is the author of, among other works, Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, winner of the Bancroft Prize, and Nothing but Freedom: Emancipation and Its Legacy.

About this edition

• Publisher: LSU Press
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0807120820
• ISBN 13: 9780807120828
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 346