Since my move to South Carolina, I have had occasion to participate in Watch-Night Services where I have come to appreciate this tradition which some say began just before the signing of the
About Our Freedom Badge You can get be among the first to qualify for the 2011 About Our Freedom Badge. The badge features just one section of the African American Monument located in
In Civil War
Pre-Civil War Sesquicentennial Reflections
8:11:00 PM
April 2011 will mark 150 years since the surrender of Fort Sumter and the start of the Civil War. We will undoubtedly hear much about Civil War battles, secession, party conflicts, and the
How did slaves spend the holidays? Are there any traditions which began back then still around today? When I moved South and attended some of the services held in the same places where
On December 22, 1864...
12:10:00 PM
On December 22, 1864, General Sherman presented a gift to President Lincoln. Click here to read the actual telegraph: Sherman's Christmas Gift to Lincoln Thanks, @LCAfricana!
The following is a legal document which clearly explains the reasons South Carolina left the Union. It was written by Christopher Memminger who also served on the committee that created the Confederate Constitution.
It has been presumed by many that few abolitionists were African American. There is, however, a database, the University of Detroit Mercy Black Abolitionist Archive, which includes the speeches of at least 800 speeches.
The following are the words of Amos Gerry Beman from a speech given in Hartford, Connecticut and published in the Emancipator, an abolitionist newspaper on 1839-11-07. He was a minister from New Haven. You may listen to the audio file created to enhance the user experience here: Amos G. Beman.
_________________________________________________
The following are the words of Amos Gerry Beman from a speech given in Hartford, Connecticut and published in the Emancipator, an abolitionist newspaper on 1839-11-07. He was a minister from New Haven. You may listen to the audio file created to enhance the user experience here: Amos G. Beman.
“Who then is elevated? Upon what is the claim
founded? Upon wealth? Have we been as industrious
and prudent as we might? Will we be from
this time? Shall this be the commencement of a
new era in our lives?
“Is our elevation founded upon our intelligence?
Have we been diligent, and studious in the cultivation
of our mental powers? Have we improved the
golden moments as they have passed away?
“Are we morally elevated? Have we all submitted
to the claims of the gospel? Is there a power
in our faith which works by love, and purifies the
heart? Who is striving to become elevated? Who
is seeking the elevation of the people? Who are
the true friends of society? Who is striving to promote
the elevation of the rising generation? Can
they not be elevated? Can they not be “trained
up in the way they should go?” Are there
no motives to urge us to seek our elevation,
because we are deprived of some of our political
rights? Because we cannot rush to the stormy
conflict of the political arena, shall we basely [set]
still and do nothing? Can we offer no sacrifice, unless
we burn it with the “strange fire” of ambition?
“No motives to be industrious and prudent, that
we may have the means of personal comfort − that
we may be able to educate our children − that we
may be prepared for the day of adversity and distress
− that we may have a shelter from the rude
and cheerless storms which howl around and sweep
the desolate winter of life? If we desire personal
comfort and respectability, if we have in our bosoms
love for our families and children, there is a
strong motive to urge us to pursue the path of industry
and economy. No motive for intellectual
elevation! What scources of pleasure and happiness
are open to an intelligent mind amid the
works of creation and the sublime wonders of revelation!
No reasons for the cultivation of the mental
powers? Sentiment unworthy an immortal mind!
“Ascend then, another step, and view yourself as
a moral being. The soul seated upon the throne
of eternity, can say with a voice which encircles
endless ages: “I live for ever a spark of the Deity.”
Noble thought! solemn truth! Motives press upon
you as moral beings, broad as the universe, wide
as creation, high as heaven, deep as hell! What
motives surround you! See your children going
on with you to the retributions of eternity! See
the claims of society, the interests of the church!
“Go stand upon the Alleghany mountains and
throw your eyes over the cotton plantations and
rice fields of the South.
“Hear the groan of the father in bondage, how his
manly frame trembles, how his heart beats, the
large tear-drop stands in his dim eye, not because
he has toiled away his youth and manhood with no
reward but the cruel lash of the relentless task
master, not because he has no hope but in the silent
grave; but his humble cottage has been plundered,
robbed, not of silver and gold, but of his wife, the
humble friend of his heart, the companion of his labor.
His son has been seized and driven away
where he shall never gladden the eye of his father
more. His daughter − but no. I will not inquire
concerning her fate. Let imagination do her office,
but fail of the sad reality. While our destiny is
linked with theirs, have we no motives to urge us
forward in the path of wisdom and usefulness?
Can we do nothing in hastening forward the day
when the trump of Jubilee will be sounded in this
land? Will not the day soon come, when the
songs of the bond man redeemed will not be confined
to the West India Islands?” University of Detroit Mercy Black Abolitionist Archive."There are four scrapbooks of pastor Amos G. Beman in the James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection. Beman (1812-1874) was a prominent abolitionist, minister, and missionary, and a leader of the black temperance movement." See Yale Slavery and Abolition Portal.
_________________________________________________
- "Beman, Amos Gerry, 1812-1874 - The Black Abolitionist Archive :: University of Detroit Mercy Libraries/IDS." Re:Search :: UDM Libraries / Instructional Design Studio. University of Detroit Mercy Black Abolitionist Archive. Web. 15 Dec. 2010. <http://research.udmercy.edu/find/special_collections/digital/baa/item.php?record_id=1865&collectionCode=baa>.
- Amos Gerry Beman-1812-1874, a Memoir on a Forgotten Leader
- Robert A. Warner
- The Journal of Negro History
Vol. 22, No. 2 (Apr., 1937), pp. 200-221
(article consists of 22 pages) - Published by: Association for the Study of African American Life and History, Inc.
- Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2714429
In Civil War
Susie King Taylor (1848-1912), Teacher, 1st African American Civil War Nurse
11:26:00 AM
As I reflected this morning upon all the recent exposure I have had to the work of Civil War historians, I understood how important it is that I search for and share the
100,000 children under the age of 15 enlisted to fight in the Civil War. George S Lamkin of Mississipi joined the Confederate army at the age of 11 and was wounded by 12
I tried to imagine what it must have been like for slaves to not know who their father's were or when they were born. This is an unfortunate road block for those who
Many believed that this nation was brought into existence by God. People of the North and South believed God favored their view of slavery. Abraham Lincoln did not speak out publicly about religion
History of the Republican Party
12:03:00 AM
Did you know that that it was the newly formed Republican Party which elected its first president, Abraham Lincoln, after only existing for only two election years?
In abolitionist
My Bondage and My Freedom
11:14:00 PM
My Bondage and My Freedom is an autobiographical slave narrative written by Frederick Douglass and published in 1855. It is the second of three autobiographies written by Douglass, and is mainly an expansion of his first (Narrative of
In education
My love affair with Frederick Douglass
6:55:00 PM
Frederick Douglass papers and biographieswww.learnodes.com/2007/12/04/frederick-douglas/ by, judy_breck As we begin this journey on "About Our Freedom," we will introduce a great African American abolitionist, author, orator, intellect, publisher, and much more!
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Freedom Maverick Awards
The awards below were inspired by a photograph that I took at The State House in downtown Columbia, South Carolina. There is so much said about the Confederate flag that hangs there, but I never have seen much about the African American Monument that depicts the history of African Americans.
Taking down a flag alone does not change a people's vision. Those we acknowledge as being a Freedom Maverick (a word coined by Angela Y.Walton-Raji in podcast #91) will help us have the right perspective.
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Robin R. Foster
This is to be accomplished through:
Understanding history and it's many interpretations
Finding our voice in history
Connecting with ancestors or their contemporaries
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About Our Freedom Awards Presented
Followers

Freedom Maverick: Service

Individuals past and present who have devoted a vast amount of time and energy to serving humankind
Freedom Maverick: Education

Individuals past and present who help us to better understand history and heritage
Freedom Maverick: Valor

Individuals present and past who exhibit a courageous amount of valor in battle
The Slave Dwelling Project
Video Library
- 1. Introductions: Why Does the Civil War Era Have a Hold on American Historical
- 2. Southern Society: Slavery, King Cotton, and Antebellum America's "Peculiar" Region
- 3. A Southern World View: The Old South and Proslavery Ideology
- 4. A Northern World View: Yankee Society, Antislavery Ideology and the Abolition Movement
- 5. Telling a Free Story: Fugitive Slaves and the Underground Railroad in Myth and Reality
- 6. Expansion and Slavery: Legacies of the Mexican War and the Compromise of 1850
- 7. "A Hell of a Storm": The Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Birth of the Republican Party, 1854-55
- 8. Dred Scott, Bleeding Kansas, and the Impending Crisis of the Union, 1855-58
- 9. John Brown's Holy War: Terrorist or Heroic Revolutionary?
- 10. The Election of 1860 and the Secession Crisis
- 11. Slavery and State Rights, Economies and Ways of Life: What Caused the Civil War?
- 12. "And the War Came," 1861: The Sumter Crisis, Comparative Strategies
- 13. Terrible Swift Sword: The Period of Confederate Ascendency, 1861-1862
- 14. Never Call Retreat: Military and Political Turning Points in 1863
- 15. Lincoln, Leadership, and Race: Emancipation as Policy
- 16. Days of Jubilee: The Meanings of Emancipation and Total War
- 17. Homefronts and Battlefronts: "Hard War" and the Social Impact of the Civil War
- 18. "War So Terrible": Why the Union Won and the Confederacy Lost at Home and Abroad
- 19. To Appomattox and Beyond: The End of the War and a Search for Meanings
- 20. Wartime Reconstruction: Imagining the Aftermath and a Second American Republic
- 21. Andrew Johnson and the Radicals: A Contest over the Meaning of Reconstruction
- 22. Constitutional Crisis and Impeachment of a President
- 23. Black Reconstruction in the South: The Freedpeople and the Economics of Land and Labor
- 24. Retreat from Reconstruction: The Grant Era and Paths to "Southern Redemption"
- 25. The "End" of Reconstruction: Disputed Election of 1876, and the "Compromise of 1877"
- 26. Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory
- 27. Legacies of the Civil War