Forever Free: The Story Of Emancipation And Reconstruction, by Eric Foner and Joshua Brown

What is it that makes this book so superior, in general, to Foner’s other works on the subject of Reconstruction? It is obvious, for example, in those few occasions in this book where the author talks about the contemporary implications of the Reconstruction that his political worldview is as little to be trusted here as it is in general when the author seeks to draw lessons from the past to be applied in the present. It is as obvious here, when the author talks about the functioning of Reconstruction governments in the South, that the author has no idea of what justice was owed to the people of the defeated South, and not just those who sought to rule over them without their consent. Yet this book does not focus on the author’s weaknesses, his blinkered and biased political perspective, his lack of understanding for Southern whites, his inability to see that what industrial workers and blacks wanted from governments was, quite honestly, not the job of government (especially national or state governments) to provide, but was rather the purview of local non-governmental private generosity rather than wasteful taxation, but rather on the author’s strengths.

It is important to do justice to these strengths. This book offers a sympathetic understanding of the black subjects of Reconstruction, from their own words, their own photographs, their own stories. The author demonstrates the hope that Reconstruction offered them–a hope that ultimately (and predictably) turned out to be a vain hope, but a hope nonetheless. When the author puts aside his partisan thinking and just writes about blacks and their longing for freedom, their desire to live as much as possible under their own control, to own land, to form political communities where their voices can be heard and where they can vote and participate freely without suffering violence for so doing, there is a genuine sense of fellow feeling that one has with them and an understanding that what they want is not so unreasonable if one looks at it on the level of people and small communities. It is to be lamented that so often fighting involves political rancor at coercion and social change forced from above, rather than the celebration of the freedom of people to live and to form families and communities and live in accordance with the law in pursuit of happiness and in the enjoyment of one’s capabilities. It would be good if there was more of this and less desire to concentrate power in the evil and corrupt hands of the political allies of the author.

This book, in terms of its contents, runs about 250 pages in length or so. The book begins with a foreword and a note on seeing race and rights in the book’s visual essays (which are generally excellent), as well as a prologue. The author then provides a chapter on slavery as the peculiar institution as it ended in the United States in the Civil War (1), along with an accompanying visual essay on the true likenesses of blacks (V1). This is followed by a discussion of blacks as being made forever free by the Emancipation Proclamation and following 13th Amendment (2), and a visual essay about the visions of war seen in paintings and photographs (V2). A chapter on the meanings of freedom (3) is accompanied by a video essay on altered relations between people as a result of freedom (V3). The next chapter, the crisis of presidential reconstruction (4), does not have an accompanying visual essay, but the one after that, on blacks raising the tocsin of freedom despite the personal harm they often suffered for so doing (5) and their desire to avoid race war, is accompanied by a chapter about the KKK and related forces on the offensive (V4). The author’s discussion of the facts of reconstruction–always a tricky matter (6)–is accompanied by a visual essay on countersigns (V5). A chapter on the abandonment of Reconstruction (7) is accompanied by a lamentable and predictable essay on the visualization of Jim Crow (V6). With this, the book ends with a political ode to the unfinished “revolution” of Reconstruction that was and has been quite properly rolled back in many aspects. The book ends with a bibliography for further reading, another bibliography for the visual essays, illustration credits, acknowledgements, and an index.