Free: The Story of Emancipation

¶ … Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction by Eric Foner. Specifically it will summarize and analyze the book, including the author's thesis. Professor Foner opens the book with a look at slavery in the United States, and the Reconstruction era in the South that followed the conclusion of the Civil War.

The author's thesis is that Emancipation and Reconstruction were historically largely evaluated by whites, and the black experience was very different. He shows that blacks were determined to win equality and equal citizenship, and they were thwarted by whites at just about every turn. He also believes Reconstruction was one of the pivotal times in American history, and it is a key to understanding American history. He believes that Reconstruction formed a type of American terrorism with groups like the Ku Klux Klan, and his "visual essays," created by Joshua Brown, help illustrate the book and make it even more stunning to the reader.

Blacks did make gains after the Civil War, but whites attempted to thwart their progress, and they formed groups like the Ku Klux Klan to help ensure white supremacy in the South. Foner notes, "By 1870, the Ku Klux Klan and kindred organizations like the Knights of the White Camelia and the White Brotherhood had become deeply entrenched in nearly every Southern state" (Foner 425). He also shows the overall attitude of many whites in the South, who felt former slaves were not entitled to an education. One planter said, "What I want here is Negroes who can make cotton... And they don't need education to help them make cotton'" (Foner 201). Throughout the book he shows what the blacks faced, how they coped with their treatment, and how whites effectively managed Reconstruction according to their own terms, and then evaluated it historically, largely leaving out the black perspective.

Foner also writes of black leadership during Reconstruction, and how blacks attempted to make gains wherever they could, which backs up his thesis that blacks were determined to be equal. He writes, "In Louisiana, South Carolina, and Virginia - the home of large free black populations - men who had never known slavery dominated among Reconstruction officeholders. For the South as a whole, however, the black political leadership arose out of local slave communities" (Foner 136). He shows the struggles, victories, and defeats the blacks faced, and helps the reader see why Reconstruction was so important to our history. He also believes that there is still a type of Reconstruction going on today, in other ways, which is another reason he feels it is so important.