Festivals of freedom : memory and meaning in African American emancipation celebrations, 1808-1915 / Mitch Kachun.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kachun, Mitchell A. (Mitchell Alan)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Enslaved persons--Emancipation--United States--Anniversaries, etc.

Enslaved persons.

African Americans--Anniversaries, etc.

African Americans.

African Americans--Politics and government--19th century.

African Americans--Politics and government--20th century.

African Americans--Politics and government.

Political culture--United States--History--19th century.

Political culture.

Memory--Political aspects.

History.

Memory--Social aspects.

Festivals.

Enslaved persons--Emancipation.

United States.

Political culture--United States--History--20th century.

Festivals--United States--History--19th century.

Festivals--United States--History--20th century.

Memory--Social aspects--United States--History.

Memory.

Memory--Political aspects--United States--History.

Physical Description:

xi, 339 pages, 15 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Amherst : University of Massachusetts Press, [2003]

Summary:

With the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade in 1808, many African Americans began calling for "a day of publick thanksgiving" to commemorate this important step toward freedom. During the ensuing century, black leaders built on this foundation and constructed a distinctive and vibrant tradition through their celebrations of the end of slavery in New York State, the British West Indies, and eventually the United States as a whole. In this revealing study, Mitch Kachun explores the multiple functions and contested meanings of African American emancipation celebrations, from the abolition of the slave trade to the fiftieth anniversary of U.S. emancipation.

Excluded from July Fourth and other American nationalist rituals for most of this period, black activists used these festivals of freedom to encourage community building and race uplift. Kachun demonstrates that, even as these annual rituals helped define African Americans as a people by fostering a sense of shared history, heritage, and identity, they were also beset with ambiguity and conflict. Freedom celebrations served as occasions for debate over black representations in the public sphere, struggles for group leadership, and contests over collective memory and its meaning.

Based on extensive research in African American newspapers and oration texts, this book retraces a vital if often overlooked tradition in African American political culture and addresses important issues about black participation in the public sphere. By illuminating the origins of black Americans' public commemorations, it also helps explain why there have been increasing calls in recent years to make the "Juneteenth" observance of emancipation an American -- not just an African American -- day of commemoration.

Contents:

1 "A day of publick thanksgiving": Foundations, 1808-1834 16

2 "A borrowed day of Jubilee": Maturation, 1834-1862 54

3 "An American celebration": Expansion and Fragmentation, 1862-1870s 97

4 "Let children's children never forget": Remembrance and Amnesia, 1870s-1910s 147

5 "Lessons of Emancipation for a New Generation": Reorientation, 1860s-1900s 175

6 "A great occasion for display": Contestation in Washington, D.C., 1860s-1900s 207

7 "The faith that the dark past has taught us": Dissolution, 1900-1920 233.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [303]-326) and index.

ISBN:

1558494073

OCLC:

51647832