Today, we areso going to be talking about the meaning of freedom. I wanted to capture our earlier discussions about the meaning of freedom when we thought about free communities, free black folks in the north and south and how we came up with this way of representing freedom as freedom with a line through it, not quite freedom. Freedom to freedom, this question of freedom and what does it mean. We will talk about what did freedom mean and in particular what did freedom mean to the free people. January of 1865 edwin stanton, secretary of war, and Union General William Sherman had a meeting with 20 preachers in savannah, georgia. They were pastors, lay church leaders. They wanted to find out from these preachers basically what is it that free people want from freedom . What did they expect in the aftermath of the emancipation proclamation . People who were ostensibly representatives of free black folks in the community selected one person, garrison frazier, a 60 sevenyearold man to be th
At Emery University and i teach human rights and u. S. Rights and u. S. Cold war policy. How long have you been doing that. Oh, i have been teaching since 1996. So wow, two decades. Where did you go up . I grew up in columbus, ohio. I grew up in columbus, ohio, i saw the policies there. It is not just the south necessarily in your view. Oh, no, no. Did you go up in init greated or segregated area . When we moved in, my father was military man, career military, after serving 20 plus years in the army he moved the family to columbus, ohio, because he wanted my brother to go to ohio state and when we got there, there was a house in oakland park my mother wanted, the Real Estate Agent said you people dont live there. I show you where you people live. We bought a house in the neighborhood by the time it was integrated, within two years there was only one white family left. So my elementally and junior high were almost predominantly black. Then i was bused in high school. Carol anderson, pro
Path. This is an hour and 45 minutes. Eric foner i am eric foner from the columbia university, moderating this second session on slavery and freedom. I want to begin by thanking the organizers of this excellent conference. We all know how much work went into, you know, putting this whole thing together. Thanks to those at the museum and the American Historical Association that have been so active in getting this conference organized. , i gave my last class at columbia university. I am now writing off riding off into the sunset. [applause] retirement. Of and so i ask if you will indulge me for just a minute as i reflect briefly on my own experience in relation to this field of African American history. Which is a little, it is sort of emblematic of the many things that have happened the last couple of generations. I grew up in a family in which africanAmerican History, although utterly ignored in the School Education that i got in grade school and high school, nonetheless, the black exp
Professors here at the time. Im a home grown boy as most of you know. Lived just across the river here in Washington County. Grew up only a few miles from the antietam battlefield. Eshepherd as always been special to me. Its great to return here this evening to be here in the bird center. I knew senator bird well. I did quite a number of tours and programs for him at Harpers Ferry National Park when he would come and visit. And he became a big ally in helping preserve civil war battlefields. A really great honor to be here at shepherd, my home school. Im so thankful that 40 years ago i was taking finals and i havent had to take finals in 36 years. And its really good to be back in this prestigious bird center sharing with you this evening one story that happened right here. Did john brown elect Abraham Linco lincoln . I want you to think about that for a moment. Did john brown elect Abraham Lincoln . The first thing that came to mind is how can that be . Brown is dead. He cant vote, so
Years. And its really good to be back in this prestigious bird center sharing with you this evening one story that happened right here. Did john brown elect Abraham Linco lincoln . I want you to think about that for a moment. Did john brown elect Abraham Lincoln . The first thing that came to mind is how can that be . Brown is dead. He cant vote, so how could he possibly have anything to do with the election of 1860. Before were finished this evening, i think well see that john brown, the ghost of john brown, the memory of brown was very influential in what happened in that election, that watershed election in American History that ultimately gave us americas greatest president. A few days ago, december 2, three days ago, 15 years ago, here in Jefferson County, something very important happened. A hanging, an execution. You here in Shepherds Town would have known about the execution. Everybody knew about it. Because john brown was climbing the scaffold. To be executed in charlestown,le