In the post-war months Confederate loyalists of Virginia have typically refused to recognize the legitimacy of the freedoms bestowed upon black citizens through the Emancipation Proclamation. Rather, the state’s elites have systematically gone about the business of ensuring that blacks remain in servitude to whites. A campaign of intimidation and violence in Richmond, including the…
With the war over and white citizens no longer the masters of blacks, in addition to having lost much of their other property during the war, retaliation against now-free blacks is a daily, and often violet and depraved, occurrence. Reports of white men imprisoning and sexually abusing black females are now common occurrences in Richmond.…
Rev. Thomas L. Johnson, a former slave, begins his biography “Twenty Eight Years a Slave” with the words: “According to information I received from my mother, I was born August 7th, 1836, at a place called Rock-Rayman, in the State of Virginia; but I do not know the place, as I was REMOVED when a…