The Emancipation Circuit : Black Activism Forging a Culture of Freedom

In The Emancipation Circuit Thulani Davis provides a sweeping rethinking of Reconstruction by tracing how the four million people newly freed from bondage created political organizations and connections that mobilized communities across the South. Drawing on the practices of community they developed while enslaved, freedpeople built new settlements and created a network of circuits through which they imagined, enacted, and defended freedom. This interdisciplinary history shows that these circuits linked rural and urban organizations, labor struggles, and political culture with news, strategies, education, and mutual aid. Mapping the emancipation circuits, Davis shows the geography of ideas of freedom---circulating on shipping routes, via army maneuvers, and with itinerant activists---that became the basis for the first mass Black political movement for equal citizenship in the United States. In this work, she reconfigures understandings of the evolution of southern Black political agendas while outlining the origins of the enduring Black freedom struggle from the Jim Crow era to the present. "The Emancipation Circuit is a unique historical account of the long-term response to emancipation in African American communities in the South. Throughout this project, Thulani Davis draws from primary archival sources as well as the work of historians as a way of closely examining the emergence, sustenance, and spread of viable independent Black politics produced during slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the aftermath. What sets this book apart from other historical accounts of the quest for freedom in the South is Davis's reconceptualization of the Emancipation Circuit itself. While Davis shows the many ways that the Circuit connected communities across physical space and offered important forms of mobility for formerly enslaved people and free Black activists, she also shows how the Circuit was about much more than just physical space. Davis expands the focus to include how the Circuit engaged working people in the democratic practice of crafting a better world. More than a network of mobility, the Circuit was a network of organizing and political imagining intended to enact and defend freedom. Over the course of four sections organized by region, Davis tells the complex and newly significant story of emancipation in the South"-- Provided by publisher Cover 1 Contents 10 List of Maps 12 List of Tables 14 Acknowledgments 16 Gallery 20 Introduction: Black Political Thought as Shaped in the South 36 1. Flight: Movement Matters 54 2. The Emancipation Circuit: A Road Map 79 3. Virginia: Assembly 115 4. North Carolina: Custody 144 5. South Carolina: Majority 168 6. Georgia: Mobilization 200 7. Florida: Faction 231 8. Alabama: Redemption 252 9. Louisiana: Societies 278 10. Mississippi: Bulldoze 304 11. Arkansas: Minority 329 Conclusion: What Lives On Is Black Political Thought 356 Notes 380 Bibliography 432 Table Source Notes 428 Index 462 A 462 B 463 C 465 D 466 E 467 F 467 G 469 H 469 I 470 J 470 K 470 L 471 M 472 N 473 O 474 P 474 Q 475 R 475 S 476 T 478 U 478 V 479 W 480 Y 480 Z 480 Introduction. Black political thought as shaped in the South -- Flight : movement matters -- The emancipation circuit : a road map -- Virginia : assembly -- North Carolina : custody -- South Carolina : majority -- Georgia : mobilization -- Florida : faction -- Alabama : redemption -- Louisiana : society -- Mississippi : bulldoze -- Arkansas : minority