So, im busy, but its a fun stuff and i really in deeply satisfied with being able to communicate. Its fascinating stuff out there. I could talk to you for hours, tangents building a robotic bricklaying machine that has been the dream of engineers for pretty much 50 or 60 years. The machine is named sam. You might sit on it jobsite somewhere. It looks like a hotdog cart with a red arm that grabs a brick and put mortar on the, and does it again and again and again. Im going to make you care about bricks. [laughter] thanks so much for talking with us today. [appla [applause] thanks to everyone for coming. We now have our book signing and signing area one. That was fun. [inaudible conversations] when i tune into on the weekends as usual its authors sharing their new releases. Watching the nonfiction authors on booktv is the best television for serious readers. They can have a longer conversation and delve into the subject. Booktv weekends. They bring you author after author after author thats spotlighting the work of busting people. I love booktv and i am a cspan fan. Now its my pleasure to introduce manisha sinha, professor of studies and history of the university of massachusetts amherst. She is the author the counterrevolution of slavery, politics and ideology and the coeditor of the twovolume africanamerican mosaic, a documentary history from african slave trade to the 21st century. And 2011 she was awarded a chance was metal and is the recipient of numerous fellowships including a National Endowment for the humanities. Boston globe calls the slaves cause a powerful look at ending slavery and attorney. The atlantic calls it a stunning history of abolitionism. We are so very delighted to have her joining us this evening. Now please join me in welcoming manisha sinha. [applause] thank you for that generous introduction. So as you can probably tell from the size of this book, i have said almost everything i wanted to about evolution and it. Today i will briefly outline some of the more important interventions of the book attempts to make. The slaves cause as a comprehensive history of abolition that we evaluate it as a radical interracial social movement. Far from narrowing the boundaries of freedom as nearly self ownership and legitimizing new forms of servitude and modern forms of inequality such as slave labor, abolition broadens the horizon and gave birth to other political passions. Not restricted, the american abolitionist moment unfolded in a hundred your drama and law, politics, literature and on the ground activism. The book extends the chronological parameters of abolition from the classical to precivil war period back to the 18th century and rejects Historical Division between slave resistance and antislavery activism. Only by writing africanamericans free and enslaved out of its history can we view of abolition as a middleclass White Movement burdened by racial paternalism and economic conservatism. Slave resistance, i argue, rather than liberalism lay at the heart of the movement. Slavery belgian parallel isolate criticisms of slavery in colonial america. The enslaved inspired the formation of the first quaker dominated Abolition Society as well as the first landmark cases that inaugurated emancipation in the western world. In fact, one could argue that behind every significant angloamerican antislavery judicial decision late enslaved litigants from the famous case in britain in 1772 which established the freedom principle thereby not allowing slaveholders to forcibly transport their slaves back to the colonies from britain, to the of the cases that abolished slavery right here in massachusetts. My students are amazed when i tell them that slavery was abolished in the commonwealth because two slaves chose to sue for their freedom. Right down to the dred scott case which, of course, inspired Abraham Lincoln to issue one of his most memorable indictments of slavery. The actions of slave rebels and runaways, freedom petitioners and climate did not lie outside of but shaped abolition and its goals. For example, i found the british quick abolitionist call for immediate abolition in 1824 which most historians are aware of, first of all for immediate abolition of slavery. In this pamphlet she called for immediate abolition with a Strong Defense of the slave rebellion that had taken place the year prior. As most publishers understood the story of abolition must begin with the struggles of the enslaved. This is particularly true of Something Like the haitian revolution whose impact is on the movement of our slavery has not really been appreciated. We have many histories of the haitian revolution and we are unaware of the tragic history of the islands being made worse by the policies of former colonizers, but we are really not aware of how profound its impact was on the movement to abolish slavery, how, in fact, it was even instead of immediate uncompensated, that is to slaveholders, abolition. So the connection between slave resistance and abolition in the United States was proximate. It gave abolition its most enduring issue, the fugitive slave controversy, and provided the movement with its most dynamic exponents, fugitive slave abolitionist. We are all aware of Frederick Douglass but, of course, there were many men and women like douglas who wrote their narratives and their narratives and away constituted the literature of the Abolition Movement, and they also became very effective critics of proslavery ideology. Slaveholders found it difficult to dismiss former slaves as northern abolitionists who knew nothing about slavery into assembly armchair philosophers. In fact, fugitive slaves to their experiences could oppose him could criticize and present an alternative picture of slavery for and much broader audience than slaveholders wanted to, and took care of their slaves. So even after bitter divisions, nothing brought all admonitions together more readily than the fugitive slaves desperate bid for freedom. Fugitive slaves justified resistance to slavery. Some historians have declared that resistance to slavery in policy but it was central to the Abolition Movement. To leave the enslaved out of abolition is to profoundly miss the part that africanamericans have played in shaping their protest traditions of american democracy. Slave resistance revolutionize abolition discourse and practice and moved abolition into Northern State and court houses. Northern personal liberty laws and attempts to grant fugitives trial by jury and prevent the kidnapping of free blacks into slavery challenged the extra tortelli only of such slave codes mandated by the federal fugitive slave laws. Enslaved, freedom seekers and she begged to the breakdown of comity between the southern and Northern States. A dress rehearsal for the momentous actions during the civil war when they helped initiate the emancipation process by voting with their freed and flocking to union army lunch. Heres one instance in which you can see how emancipation during the war had, in fact, abolitionist roots. This movement of slaves seeking freedom, this movement to free spaces away from there and slavers. The history of abolition is an integrated store for even though its not usually told in that manner. The insidious divide between white and black activism motivates some book on abolition is both racialist and inaccurate. There was no such Racial Division of political labor in the Abolition Movement. Early africanamerican literature, black abolitionist intellectual response to the pseudoscience of race, and debate over citizenship and immigration perform the work of political protest. The sophistication of black abolitionist should finally put to rest the influential yet liberal view of it as imitative, mired in the scriptures of middleclass reforms, and divorced from the plight of southern slaves and northern masters. Black and white abolitionists i argue also but beyond a simple appeal to the American Republican tradition that sought to complete simply include africanamericans in its promise. They generated a powerful critique of the slave Holding Republican constructed a counter narrative that highlighted its origins in the slave trade and slavery. So most historians, for instance, accept that white abolitionists, at least now they do, that white abolitionists gather anticolonization program from africanamericans. This is a program to colonize all free blacks back to africa. It had found favor with the founding fathers, thomas jefferson, james madison, and with prominent politicians of course right down to the civil war. But i found that black abolitionist influence to be ongoing in the movement beyond simply the rejection of colonization. One of my biggest aha moment in writing this book was to discover that William Lloyd garrison guide is famed condemnation of the u. S. Constitution as quote a covenant in an agreement with hell im from the black abolitionist, relatively unknown black abolitionist minister. It made sense to me because the garrison was not much of a scholar of bible. Pennington was a theologian. That he would actually articulate this critique made sense. Ironically pennington sided with the political and evangelical abolitionists, that faction of the movement against garrison as did many ministers. But garrison extended his condemnation of the fugitive slave laws of the constitution to the constitution itself. The alternative nature of abolitionism be showcased by its Diverse Membership which gave rise to corporation as well as the creative conflicts across lines of race, class and gender that characterize early in american society. The Abolition Movement was driven by passionate outsiders in which the disenfranchised including women played a seminal role. Women were abolitionists foot soldiers and more controversy, its leaders and orators. In birthing the first woman to write movie, abolition reveal its radical face. The presence of women and especially their speaking out in public acquiring office in Antislavery Society lead to a division in th in the movement g the key resilience profound womens rights was an essential part of human rights, and the root of the more conservative opponent who opposed womens rights both for ideological reasons amongst evangelicals but also pragmatic recently this and did not want to stab abolition with yet another unpopular cause. And during reconstruction, of course the abolitionist feminist alliance that garrisonians had constructed faltered. The Womens Movement became autonomous as they rejected amendments to the constitution that institutes the word mail in the u. S. Constitution. But it also lost the abolitionist commitment to racial equality as i write in the book, some things were gained but a lot was lost. Never the socalled quote monomaniac scum ever lampooned at, abolitionist started with the early quakers who recognize the oppression of the slave would link to other wrongs. More than a few abolitionists joined such international radical movements such as feminism, utopian socialism and pacifism, and champion native americans, immigrants and womens rights. Garrison issued a prescient indictment of finance capitalism at wall street in 1840. I put in because he sounds a lot like bernie sanders. And i quote, i am writing in wall street where the money changes congregate and where they are seen sidebyside. It is rightly named wall street, for those who have literally occupied it in quest of riches and expense of mankind are walled in from the sympathies of human nature, and their hearts are as hard as the paving stones of which they are treated. Or the marble buildings which they have erected and dedicated through their idle days of unquote. Only garrison could write like that. This is not just an isolated quotation. Garrison supported a 10 hour day. He formed an alliance with the british charters working class movement, supported journeyman printers strikes, and after the civil war he supported the eight hour day movement. Some abolitionists even contemplated contemporary american scourges, criticizing the criminalization and the use of Capital Punishment and force by this date. Garrisoned once quipped that all american institutions shut their doors to black people except what he called quote the prison houses. Abolition, the book argues, was a radical Democratic Movement that question the enslavement of labor as radical agitators come abolitionists were not so much purists of liberal democracy as many have argued, but critics of the. In prioritizing the abolition of slavery they did not ignore and they did not defend other forms of oppression in the modern world. Abolitionists i can think in this book with the intellectual and political precursors of 20th century anticolonial and civil rights activists. Debating the nature of society, the relationship between racial inequality and democracy, nation and empire, labor and capital, gender and citizenship. They use the labor of antisliver to criticize western society, and expose their other site. Abolitionists were opponents of rather than stalking horses of imperialism. I have to confess that an indian woman writing about american abolition, i was delighted to read condemnations of british imperialism in india in the liberator. And uncover personal connections between early indian nationalists, and angola and american abolitionists who are interested in the cost of india. In fact, i discovered that just as abolitionists have circulated lots of error from the british abolitionists, famous british abolitionist in the boston antislavery bazaar, they sent walks of hair from the indian social reformer and nationalists roger to be sold in boston. That was quite an amazing find, too. Abolitionists were original and critical thinkers on democracy, not simply romantic reformers who confined themselves to appeal to the heart. The movement against slavery made a signal contribution to the discourse of human rights and humanitarianism. The depiction of abuse bodies, from slave narratives dripping with blood to abolitionist newspapers and pamphlets has appeared to many scholars as bourgeois said mentality. Voyeuristic photography and racist objectification of the enslaved. This scholarly gaze, the vast condensation bestowed at the very real history of blacks blak suffering on the political economy of a harsh played regiment leads people astray. It is based on a whitewashed understanding of abolition that brings these out the black presence completely. Its roots lie in slaveholders since a response to abolitionist criticism, and it fundamentally misreads agitation. The attempt to develop radical empathy from an audience whose very comforts were dependent on the exploitation of those deemed inferior and expendable. Those lessons remain useful today. Confronted by a reactionary expansion is slaveholding class that dreamed of an empire based on slavery, the real slave past rather than the figment of the paranoid imagination, abolitionists develop an uncompromising response to its aggressions at home and abroad. As the movement matured in the teeth of strong stifle the opposition and state power in the United States, the cost of the american slave became intertwined with that of democracy, civil liberties, and the emancipation of women and labor. It is no coincidence that the present incomplete trial of the abolitionist vision resulted in the greatest expansion of american democracy. Abolitionists the ms. Disgrace contraction. At the heart of that movement as the great black intellectual activist w. E. B. Dubois argued a long time ago, the slaves struggle for freedom and human dignity. Far from being an extremist formulation with no relevance to National Politics and the important events of the day, abolitionists political project, the overthrow of the slavery based of the 19th century American Republic was at the vanguard of antislavery. Some abolitionists became disenchanted with the country and government, while others sought to harness the part of its blade state legislator. The history is an idea of how a radical social movement generate engines of political change. As they do at all social movements, questions of principle, experience he, giving rise to divisions over tactic. Abolitionists debated the culpability of the church, state and society, as well as their ability to change. Society could be transformed through political action, and whether the state was an arena of conflict of the slave power. It is a mistake to equate slaveholders political power with modern state formation. For good reason. The conservative political tradition of american slaveholders who dominated the federal and state governments from the inception, the immigrant republic, and use all the parts, all the repressive parts of the state to further their interests of slavery was strongly antistatists. In fact ruling classes have use what political scientists call negative powers of state to police people. That should not be mistaken for modern state formation. I tell a different story of state development and Democratic Political change than the more pessimistic view of the state. A look at how abolitionists and at the slavery radicals use the powers of the state to implement their vision of an interracial democracy. This is of course especially true after the antislavery Republican Party came into power with lincolns election in 1860, and i do want to add a caveat here at everything you abou youw about the republican and Democratic Party today, you should just simply flip for the 19th century. I think it is a useful corrective for modernday activists who fight against various forms of social and economic injustice to look at the ways in which abolitionists are thought to affect political change. Perhaps no one understood this better than the fugitive slave abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who broke with garrison over precisely this issue, the issue of political action. The origins of progressive constitutionalism likened to abolitionist debate over the nature of the u. S. Constitution. And particularly with douglass who went beyond the intent of the founders to view the constitution as a living, breathing document at each generation made a new. It was certainly that abolitionist vision that inspired radical reconstruction and the reconstruction amendments to the constitution after the civil war. A New Historical narrative of abolition, the slaves called challenges, longstanding and arbitrary binaries it for too long historians have told its story in a fragmented fashion, and continue to do so along lines of race and gender. Older historical debates over the relative importance of garrisonians versus the evangelicals and political abolitionists, eastern versus western, revisit and rehashed abolition of divisions that at times i am critically adopting the position of their subjects. I have found them to be far less important than the attention lavished on them suggests and highly conducive to the perpetuation of stereotypes that defy the historical record. Recent global history of slavery emancipation. By contrast my book narrates the Movement History of abolition in the United States in a transnational context. From its inception was an interracial one and tied to the development of american democracy. From the early wake her lack protests against slavery to the rise of the angloamerican movement against the slave trade in the late 18th century to the golden age of abolitionism in the years before the civil war, abolitionists were united by their devotion to the slave cause. The abolitionist project of both affecting america, indeed of global democracy, remains to be fulfilled. In that sense its legacy is an ongoing one. Thank you for listening so patiently. [applause] i should add that much of what i said this from the introduction of the book. If you like wha what you heard today, the book is available at the bookstore. I have been told i should say that. But i welcome questions. Hello. Since you mentioned the haiti revolution to award as your perspective on this. What lessons did the american abolitionist take not only from the haitian revolution but also emancipation of the created in the south america, particularly from the british example . A very good question. Abolitionists were rather cosmopolitan in their approach to the existence of slavery in this country. They recognized it as a hemisphere Wide Institution and they lauded the haitian revolution as the only example of immediate abolition without compensation to slaveholders. To abolitionists, especially the garrisonians, very critical of british emancipation because the long drawnout period of apprenticeship and compensation to slaveholders. Gerson said if anyone deserves compensation it was the slaves themselves. And even more than the garrisonians i found the africanamerican abolitionist especially in their culture but really aware of latin american wars of independence debates over Citizenship Rights for free blacks, its like people and they reproduced writings of revolutionaries. Discontinues right down to the 1830s and 1848 european revolution. Of course, many of the refugees from those revolutions especially the germans joined the Abolition Movement. So its kind of a direct connection. But what does that need to carry the truth the most was the fact that someone like garrison is a pacifist come in fact an extreme pacifist. Hes in nonresistant, he doesnt believe in the use of force in any circumstances laws the haitian revolution and doesnt see it as a contradiction. So eventually when abolitionists come to support Something Like john browns raid Harpers Ferry is how long history of looking at transnational movements, for instance, is of slavery guard and actually defending them. You mention items that were for sale in the antislavery fair. Can you Say Something more about those, and would also integrated effort, what would you see of them . What would they like . The antislavery fair is really something that are managed by when abolitionists are many times they were integrated. So the first antislavery bazaar, as they put it, was organized in boston which includes sometimes africanamerican abolitionist women like susan paul. What was interesting to me about these affairs was how abolitionists created kind of a modern movement. Their fundraising tactics were really interesting. Women would produce with me to work, maybe prick your conscience, self. Farmers would bring butter and other produce that they had to sell at these fairs. More fancy items were donated in england and brought over time ce including locks of hair that he mentioned. Black women abolitionists sometimes held their own bazaars to support particularly black newspapers like the colored american or Frederick Douglass paper in new york. In philadelphia black women and quicker when incorporated into the interracial female Antislavery Society. So you had to these coming up that revenues of interracial Cooperation Amongst women but also showed how women really were wonderful fundraiser of movement. They kept newspapers like the National Antislavery Standard in new york or the liberator in boston afloat by raising about the funds in these bazaars. They were clever about it. They would sometimes hold it at the same time as commencement at Brown University in providence so that they would be able to sell their fairs. I think thats one of the ways that you see how women contribute to the movement, also how modern the movement was in the kind of fundraising. What today wed call those kind of, politicians today are proud of the fact that we had contributions of less than 25, less than 5 but thats exactly how they fund raised in the Abolition Movement. Move back to the 18th century massachusetts. Before the revolution there were a series of cases that were more for freedom, for emancipation rather than abolition. And then the slave petitions in 177375, one of their complaint was there was no law in massachusetts allowing for slavery. And then the two cases were only after the constitution was adopted where there was all men are created equal phrase. It was almost like they couldnt sue in principle for abolition because there wasnt any law to suit against. Was this too and other Northern States . Interestingly enough in massachusetts, at 1641 body of liberties allowed for the enslavement of quote strangers. But at the same time you had rich. And legal tradition that about slaves to sue for the freedom on various grounds. One of the most common i found was a nancy. Thats condemned by the bible. They were instances of africans in boston in the 17th century who sued for the freedom saying that they been kidnapped into slavery. Those puritans set them free. So you had this tradition of suing for freedom but it quickens during the revolution era where you have many more instances of enslaved people suing for the freedom, petitioning for the freedom as you put it. Some of the asked for what they call the spanish law which would allow them to work for one day and accumulate money to buy themselves. So various avenues to escape slavery. Whats interesting of course, the cases go right up to the Supreme Judicial Court of massachusetts and, in fact, the judge ruled that slavery violates not the old body of liberties but the new state constitution that had just been promulgated, and the rights that were enumerated there for citizens of the commonwealth. And thats what leads to the end of slavery here. Certainly in the other Northern States are gradual and meditation laws that bring children of slaves after long period of apprenticeship. Its more gradual. Garrisons saying it was the slaves who needed compensation leads one to ask, what about the subject of accumulation of wealth by slaves, and how much did the abolitionists focus on this and how much do you focus on it . Is impossible to quantify in any sense . It is actually. I would hesitate to say that slaves that you might well. They did accumulate a few private belongings, sometimes livestock, sometimes they sowed from gardens of a cultivated over the weekend when they were not forced to labor for the masters. And we know about this because during the civil war when the union army marched and there was devastation in the south, they were actually slaves who filed claims to the Southern Claims Commission saying we lost this amount of property, this amount of livestock that was valued at such and such. So yes, you had those instances. You even had some exception to the rules where you had africanamerican slaveholders, but we know that slaves did not exactly taking the wealth the way their insulators did based on centuries of unpaid labor enslavers. Im wondering how did it start in the beginning for you to head in this direction of study . Thats a great question. My first book was on southern slaveholders and the rise of proslavery ideology and states rights. I just decided i wanted to write a book about people i actually liked, and so i decided to write a book about abolitionists who were their opponents. And anyway i had a sense of the way in which the slaveholders received the Abolition Movement and the abolitionists. It piqued my interest, and then i spent the next 10 years, i didnt know what i was getting into, because whatever abolitionists lac lacked in powr they made up in out producing. They are more likely opponents in pamphlets, newspapers, books. Its a huge archive to master. You spoke in a general way i think about a continuity between the Womens Movement, civil civl rights and so as with the earlier movement. Are you saying that the later movements sort of just followed the same track, and reinvented the same wheel, or are you saying the later movements actually went back and you on some of the same activities and writings . Yes, i would be careful not to say that the later movements were simply too recapitulating what the abolitionists were doing. As the stories were very particular about the time period we talk about and the particular set of problems that different activists have faced at different points in history. So i would not say they were simply doing the same things that abolitionists were doing but they confronted the problems. And even though after the fall of reconstruction there was an attempt to push back people to close labor as fast as possible. The fact remains that slavery would no longer sort of legally there. What i do see though as i write this into a blog of the book, that most american radicals beginning with the Early Labor Movement to the populist to american socialists, to the civil rights activists who call themselves the new abolitionists and call their movement the second reconstruction of american democracy were actually quite aware of the abolitionists and the seated and evil do. They worked to legitimize their own struggle but they also sometimes used some of the ideas and some of their tactics, like having lecturing agents or like the wobblies did, the international workers. They immediately adopted the fight for free speech that abolitionists have begun. So there were certain tactics and ideas that lived on but, of course, put into play for very particular problems that those different movements faced at that time. So if you read the epilogue of the book you will see that i do not sort of elaborate on that because i think if i did, this book would be rather thicker than it is already, and i was told by my editor not to make it any longer. But maybe in a future project i would like to explore some of those connections more closely. Candy tells all but about [inaudible] thats a great question and, of course, a good one coming from a historic on immigration to the abolitionists tried to recruit immigrants especially in boston i think the garrison was very aware of this sort of vast irish emigration coming in, and he wrote an early editorial in 1884 condemning nativism and the rights of political nativism. Than he thought he could actually use irish nationalists like daniel akaka was an abolitionist of the irish abolitionists did issue an appeal to irish immigrants but it was known as the irish appeal, to join the Abolition Movement. Unfortunately, for various reasons that did not work. Part of it was the incorporation of irish emigrants into the southern leaning Democratic Party, the influence of the Catholic Church at the time. In fact, when the irish appeal was issued, Bishop John Hughes ironically condemned it as quote foreign and defense. Interamerican affairs. In the end i think the abolitionists fails to recruit a large number of irish emigrants into their cause, but not for the lack of trying. There were others who actually rejected the irish leaders, political leaders have rejected this connection with the Abolition Movement, and elected robert time it was the site of the slaveholding john tyler as the president of the irish repeal association. Asked Daniel Oconnor to denounce the american abolitionists, and he was brilliant. He told, part of it of course is americanization and sort of hyper nationalism demonstrate loyalty to your adopted country, not criticizing its institution, especially those that threatened the union. But Daniel Oconnell issued a wonderful letter before his death he told it was not in ireland we learned of this cruelty, not his exact words. So the project of sort of recruiting immigrant amongst the irish failed. With the germans they were a little more successful because a lot of them were freethinking refugees from the 1848 revolution. And a lot of them simply rot that commitment to liberal democracy, human rights, the general revolutionary republican ideas, which they then put into the service after the Abolition Movement. So the germans come this gymnastic clubs they had, were very important in defending abolitionists and africanamericans from attacks but at the abolitionists mobs. The irish star does not end on a bad note because after the civil war, in fact, the lander legs formed real connection with irish radicals, and visiting the antislave reactions had without a connection with emigrants does come true after the war. Patrick ford it was actually an apprentice to garrison in his newspaper the liberator joined Henry Georges single tax campaign after the civil war and names his newspaper, i think was called the new liberator. So these connections do it eventually bear fruit but it was a troubled relationship before the civil war. Great question. Getting back to this question about abolitionists, you mentioned veterans of 1848 in europe joining the trend and joined the movement. To what extent did american abolitionists american abolitionist travel to other parts of the world . They did, in fact, and not just white abolitionists. Black abolitionist travel all over the world to you find black abolitionist like William Brown or pennington, you find it in the paris police conference, very much part of the pacifist movement, the rise of these world peace conventions and world antislavery conventions. You have women like Maria Chapman who is in paris and from the connection with the Russian Movement against serfdom. You have tremendous contact, they correspond. Alexander was an idle for many abolitionists. And when abolitionists did their doors, particularly in britain and later on in europe, they made it a point to talk to this sort of liberals in europe who were fighting against absolute monarchy to serve connect their causes. They saw an ideological connection and so did the europeans. Winbook has was appointed, the slaves cause became the cause of all nations. And i think that is, in fact, a correct understanding of exactly what happened in terms of personal relationships. Earlier you mentioned the status of citizenship or the citizenship status. I mean, im interested to know if citizenship in and of itself was used in various ways in different places. And also any discussions are discussions about kind of the responsibilities, the rights and are the responsibility of citizenship for slaves, exslaves and everything in between speak with another great question. Because the idea of republican citizenship of course was not just write but duty of citizenship. And i think this is one way in which africanamerican abolitionist really did influence the agenda of the Abolition Movement. Free africanamericans in the north made sure that the Abolition Movement was not simply fighting to destroy southern slavery, but that it made racial equality and the blacblack citizenship an essentl part of its agenda. Including fighting jim crow and segregation in public transportation, and schools, et cetera in the north. This was their signal contribution to the Abolition Movement. They rejected repatriation to africa. They insisted there were entitled to citizenship. The involvement of courting to which of mention, which is we have performed the duties of citizenship. Many of us served in the revolution were. James forten was literally a veteran of the revolutionary war as a young teenager. He refused to renounce the patriot cause and was actually imprisoned in a british man of war. Some of them had fought in the war of 1812. And during the civil war particularly when large numbers of africanamericans fight in the union army, around 180,000 in the union army and another 20,000 in the union navy, they really do have rights. Are we good enough to play for the country but not good enough to cast a vote . Good enough for bullets but not the ballot. Any other questions . Yes, yes. Number one, im just so very pleased to hear that you are communicating the connections between the two groups, and i think its probably the first time i heard it this way. Im also kind of struck by the quote of, which suggested that slaves were owed something, and in the context of the africanamericans insisting they were discussions about reparations or africanamericans being actually owed something is like a big nono. I think its a very, very interesting thats whats happening then, and that in many, many circles it happens to be. Can you talk a little about that . Yes actually. When you had indentured servitude in the colonial era which included white indentured servants for a number of years, when they became very they got freedom abuse. Sometimes it was part of land, but that became increasingly rare but it included to sometimes livestock just to give him a start been leading a life of freedom. So and africanamericans were emancipated during the civil war, when they ask for freedom dues, theyre going back to a very old tradition. But, of course, no one viewed it as that. Their demand for land and for compensation was virtually ignored except for some wartime grants. 40 acres and a mule, to set of subtle former slaves and plots of land and give them a mule from the union army. And those grants were revoked when after johnson became president. He was one of those who thought that each give black people rights to someone to complete rights from whites, and is completely against the idea of distributing abandoned land, abandoned by slaveholders to the people who cultivated them are so there was an ongoing discussion about this at that time. And abolitionists and radical republicans in congress insisted that, in fact, the slaves were owed something. They called it compensation to we called it reparation today. And, of course, now everyone thinks thats kind of a pieinthesky idea. When it was raised, even radicals sometimes balked at the idea that this is even possible or feasible. But at that time period, many abolitionists, in fact most abolitionists felt that this was something that was owed to free the people. And certainly africanamericans themselves, the free people themselves raise that demand for compensation, for generations of stolen labor. I just want to clarify, is there a way to put a number figure on the value of the enslaved persons labor through these years . I think thats what you were asking. Im sorry, i completely misunderstood your question. Spin i didnt ask very well, obviously. We know that there were around 4 million enslaved people on the eve of the civil war according to the 1860 census, and they were valued at nearly 3 billion at that time. In terms of trying to put a value on their labor, that would be something that would be a fascinating talk that it was not undertaken to come and as far as i know no economic historian has actually done that. Given rights a very prominent economic historian of slavery and Stanford University argued that if a southern farmer who owned one slave, just one slave, not a big slaveholder but a small farmer who owned one slave was richard than any northern white man because the valley of the slave was so high. Most northern white men, average northern white farmers, et cetera, they were much richer than average White Property holders to just even if you owned one slave because slaves were considered such a viable property as capital. The valley of their labor must have been immense, you know, and i think he knows this of course that the valley of slave grown cotton, and it was the main type of export from the United States in the antebellum era. Its value exceeded the value of all of the items of export from the United States. So this was a tremendous economic asset. So putting a number as a valid of slave labor of unpaid slave labor, you would come up with an enormous, i think youd come up with an enormous sum your thank you. Thank you for clarifying that. Just one place to start. I think certain buildings window were built by slaves. Certain buildings in washington, d. C. So thats a place to start. Yes absorbed. I think theres something rather moving as i said i think yesterday, was it just yesterday . Yes, the show in d. C. , that theres something really enormously moving to see the obamas in the white house was built with enslaved labor. And, indeed, there are many official buildings that belong to the state that used slave labor because of course washington, d. C. Had legal slavery right up to 1862, the middle of the civil war. You had emancipation in the capital of the nation itself. Any other questions or comments, or have i silenced you all with my long answers . Yes. Are their descendents of the Abolition Movement . Can you identify descendents of the movement . So ive had a very interesting experience after publishing this book. There are activists within black lives matter, within occupy wall street who are fascinated by the history of abolition. And i have received emails and messages from contemporary activists who are looking to the movement and read the book and are surprised sometimes to find precedents for what theyre fighting for. On the other hand, i have received emails from direct descendents of the abolitionists themselves. So the great, great granddaughter of William Lloyd garrison, the great, great granddaughter of a black abolitionists who lives right here in boston. The great, great grandson who is a distinguished Professor Emeritus from Cornell University of a liza fight who is a prominent political activist. He wrote to me. So ive been getting messages literally from the direct descendents from the abolitionist. Whats interesting is they are still fairly active. They are active in various causes. In fact, some of them are holding a vigil against Capital Punishment, against Death Penalty today writer in boston commons. I should mention that today is International Day of remembrance for victims of slavery and the slave trade. So there are people who are still involved and active in some of these causes. And i think that is really the enduring legacy of the Abolition Movement. I think im getting a signal there that we need to wrap up, and i know cspan district with its time limits. So perhaps we should call it an evening at least as far as this part of the program is concerned that if youre interested in purchasing books, i would be happy to sign them for you. Thank you very much. [applause] [inaudible conversations] booktv takes hundreds of offer programs throughout the country all year long. Heres a look at some of the events we will be covering this week. A discussion of strategies to empower workers and increase wages at the center for American Progress in washington, dc. And next sunday, well be live with will hey goode on in depth, author of biography s the author and former journalist will discuss his many books and take your calls. Thats a look at the author programs booktv is covering this week. Many events are open to the public. Look for them to air on booktv on cspan2. Next on booktv, doug laws rushkoff talks about building a new economy