Forever in Struggle

Abstract

Here is an invaluable and timely book about a subject central to U.S. history and still of obvious signifi cance today—slavery, the Civil War, emancipa- tion, Reconstruction, and both the immediate aftermath and longer-term consequences of those things. During the last forty years or so, scholars have produced a tremendous body of high-quality literature illuminating these and related subjects. But, as Eric Foner notes, cutting-edge scholarship . . . takes a long time to percolate into the broader culture (p. xxvii). A work of synthesis, Forever Free aims to accelerate that percolation by helping to bring the results of those scholarly labors out of university libraries and classrooms and before a larger reading public. As the book's prologue makes clear, this is a book primarily about Recon- struction. The core text is composed of seven chapters and an epilogue. Its fi rst chapter, on the origins, purpose, and nature of African-American slavery, appears here not only the South's peculiar institution caused the Civil War and Reconstruction but also because the institutions former slaves created during Reconstruction and the values and aspirations they articulated in the aftermath of emancipation had their roots in the slave experience (p. xxx). The second chapter looks at the Civil War and wartime emancipation. Five chapters then detail the history of Reconstruction—its rise, achievements, and eventual overturn. The last of those fi ve also reviews the later imposition of formal disfranchisement and legalized segregation without such a review the long-term meaning of Reconstruction's defeat for the status and conditions of the African-American population is seriously and dangerously obscured. An epilogue quickly surveys the story's sequel, from the Jim Crow era down to the present. Joshua Brown selected and captioned the pictorial images that copiously illustrate this text. Brown also authored six visual essays that demonstrate and analyze historical changes in mainstream artistic depiction of African Americans, from the antebellum era through the early decades of the twentieth