I saw death coming : a history of terror and survival in the war against Reconstruction
Publication Information
New York : Bloomsbury Publishing, 2023.
Physical Description
xxv, 351 pages : illustration, map ; 24 cm
Summary
"The story of Reconstruction is often told from the perspective of the politicians, generals, and journalists whose accounts claim an outsized place in collective memory. But this pivotal era looked very different to African Americans in the South transitioning from bondage to freedom after 1865. They were besieged by a campaign of white supremacist violence that persisted through the 1880s and beyond. For too long, their lived experiences have been sidelined, impoverishing our understanding of the obstacles post-Civil War Black families faced, their inspiring determination to survive, and the physical and emotional scars they bore because of it. In I Saw Death Coming, Kidada E. Williams offers a breakthrough account of the much-debated Reconstruction period, transporting readers into the daily existence of formerly enslaved people building hope-filled new lives. Drawing on overlooked sources and bold new readings of the archives, Williams offers a revelatory and, in some cases, minute-by-minute record of nighttime raids and Ku Klux Klan strikes. And she deploys cutting-edge scholarship on trauma to consider how the effects of these attacks would linger for decades--indeed, generations--to come."--
Contents
- We had to pick ourselves up
- The devil was turned loose
- I didn't know how soon they might come to send me up
- They deviled us a while
- I don't ever expect in this life to get over it
- They never intended to do me justice
- What they did is hurting my family
- A revolution in reverse.