Reconstruction and Its Aftermath
The Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 freed African Americans in rebel states, and after the Civil War, the Thirteenth Amendment emancipated all U.S. slaves wherever they were. As a result, the mass of Southern blacks now faced the difficulty Northern blacks had confronted that of a free people surrounded by many hostile whites. One freedman, Houston Hartsfield Holloway, wrote, “For we colored people did not know how to be free and the white people did not know how to have a free colored person about them.”
Even after the Emancipation Proclamation, two more years of war, service by African American troops, and the defeat of the Confederacy, the nation was still unprepared to deal with the question of full citizenship for its newly freed black population. The Reconstruction implemented by Congress, which lasted from 1866 to 1877, was aimed at reorganizing the Southern states after the Civil War, providing the means for readmitting them into
It was a testimony to freedom: “Can I then but pray,” she wrote, “Others may never feel tyrannic sway?”
You might know her as the woman forever poised in thought at Boston’s Women’s Memorial between Fairfield and Gloucester Streets on Commonwealth Ave.
What each passerby might not know is the extraordinary story she has shared with her flawlessly balanced feather quill and the stories she continues to inspire.
America’s first Black poet, Phillis Wheatley was born on May 8, 1753, in The Gambia where she grew up until she was kidnapped at about age 7 or 8.
After crossing the Middle Passage on a slave ship, she arrived in Boston where John Wheatley bought her from the city’s slave market to be a servant for his wife Susannah Wheatley.
smithsonianmag.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from smithsonianmag.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Interim Provost Jan Love has announced plans to include Emory Libraries and the Michael C. Carlos Museum under a new leadership structure designed to facilitate closer coordination in the fulfilment of their mutual educational, research and discovery missions, and ultimately enhance support for both.
A new vice provost for libraries and museums will provide a direct link to the Office of the Provost and engage the Emory community in planning for the future of both areas, including advancing the digitization, cataloging and conservation of the university’s extraordinary collections, while continuing to enhance access for the Emory community and beyond.