A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration

TitleA Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration
Publication TypeBook
Year of Publication2003
AuthorsHahn, Steven
Number of Pages634
PublisherHarvard University Press
CityBoston
Abstract

This is the epic story of how African-Americans, in the six decades following slavery, transformed themselves into a political people--an embryonic black nation. As Steven Hahn demonstrates, rural African-Americans were central political actors in the great events of disunion, emancipation, and nation-building. At the same time, Hahn asks us to think in more expansive ways about the nature and boundaries of politics and political practice. Emphasizing the importance of kinship, labor, and networks of communication, A Nation under Our Feet explores the political relations and sensibilities that developed under slavery and shows how they set the stage for grassroots mobilization. Hahn introduces us to local leaders, and shows how political communities were built, defended, and rebuilt. He also identifies the quest for self-governance as an essential goal of black politics across the rural South, from contests for local power during Reconstruction, to emigrationism, biracial electoral alliances, social separatism, and, eventually, migration.

URLhttps://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=acls;cc=acls;view=toc;idno=heb03953.0001.001
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845587930

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