Freedom Colonies: Independent Black Texans in the Time of Jim Crow (Jack & Doris Smothers Series in Texas History, Life, and Culture) - Hardcover

Sitton, Thad; Conrad, James H.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0292706189 ISBN 13: 9780292706187

Verlag: University of Texas Press, 2005

Inhaltsangabe

Book by Sitton Thad Conrad James H

Über diesen Titel

Críticas:

"This book is the first of its kind... Blacks emerge as thinkers and actors on the stage; that is, they were not merely passive victims; rather, they made their own history by building their own communities and by becoming free farmers." James Smallwood, Professor Emeritus of History, Oklahoma State University

Reseña del editor:

In the decades following the Civil War, nearly a quarter of African Americans achieved a remarkable victory--they got their own land. While other ex-slaves and many poor whites became trapped in the exploitative sharecropping system, these independence-seeking individuals settled on pockets of unclaimed land that had been deemed too poor for farming and turned them into successful family farms. In these self-sufficient rural communities, often known as "freedom colonies," African Americans created a refuge from the discrimination and violence that routinely limited the opportunities of blacks in the Jim Crow South. Freedom Colonies is the first book to tell the story of these independent African American settlements. Thad Sitton and James Conrad focus on communities in Texas, where blacks achieved a higher percentage of land ownership than in any other state of the Deep South. The authors draw on a vast reservoir of ex-slave narratives, oral histories, written memoirs, and public records to describe how the freedom colonies formed and to recreate the lifeways of African Americans who made their living by farming or in skilled trades such as milling and blacksmithing. They also uncover the forces that led to the decline of the communities from the 1930s onward, including economic hard times and the greed of whites who found legal and illegal means of taking black-owned land. And they visit some of the remaining communities to discover how their independent way of life endures into the twenty-first century.

Über diese Auflage

• Verlag: University of Texas Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0292706189
• ISBN 13: 9780292706187
• Einband: Tapa dura
• Anzahl der Seiten: 272