The Roots of African-American Identity: Memory and History in Antebellum Free Communities

by Elizabeth Rauh Bethel

Overview

Spanning the eight decades between the American Revolution and the Civil War, Bethel focuses on the lives of African Americans living in the nominally free northern and western states. Examining race and the construction of a politicized racial identity, this book explores how a group of fundamentally marginalized people crafted a uniquely New World ethnic identity which informed popular African American historical consciousness. The vision of freedom and historical consciousness this population crafted shaped post-1865 African American participation in Reconstruction, formed the spiritual and ideological foundation for the modern Pan-African movement and provided the historical legacy for the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780312128609
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan US
Publication date:	10/06/1997
Edition description:	1997
Pages:	242
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.03(d)

About the Author

Elizabeth Rauh Bethel is Professor of Sociology at Lander University and author of "Promised Land: A Century of Life in a Negro Community" and "AIDS: Readings on a Global Crisis."

Table of Contents

Prologue: The Revolution Remembered: The Fifth of March, 1858 - PART 1: FASHIONING A MORAL COMMUNITY, 1775-1800 - In the Bowels of a Free and Christian Country, Living in the Revolutionary Era - Sons and Daughters of Distress: A Theology of Liberation - PART 2: ENVIRONMENTS OF MEMORY, 1800-1835 - From Laws and Revolutions, Freedom Lieux - Africa Envisioned, Africa Found - Moral Community, Ethnic Identity, and Political Action - PART 3: HISTORY AND THE POLITICS OF MEMORY, 1835-1860 - Haiti, Canada, and a Pan-African Vision - Biography, Narrative, and Memory: The Construction of a Popular Historical Consciousness - Epilogue: Emancipation, Reconstruction, and Empire-Building

Editorial Reviews

A very insightful study of the black experience in America.

Washington Times

Bethel (sociology, Lander U.) examines race and the construction of a politicized racial identity through an exploration of how African Americans in the nominally free northern and western states crafted a uniquely New World ethnic identity that informs popular African- American historical consciousness. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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