Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters
Elusive Freedom: African American Families in the Reconstruction Era
ORCID (Links to author’s additional scholarship at ORCID.org)
Abstract
The 1863 Emancipation Proclamation freed approximately four million enslaved persons. The Proclamation only reached, however, enslaved persons in Confederate states. The Thirteenth Amendment had to be ratified in 1865 to legally abolish slavery across the United States and all its territories. The freedom of African Americans came only after the loss of 750,000 soldiers in the Civil War, and Southern slave owners were reluctant to give them their liberty. The Reconstruction era after the Civil War was filled with hope, uncertainty, and new beginnings for Blacks, who had mostly lived lives punctuated by violence, fear, backbreaking hard work, hunger, and trauma. The idea of freedom was exhilarating, documented by celebrations of joy and hope for a self-determined future.
Publication Title
Centering Families of Color: A Reimagination of Family Law
Document Type
Book Chapter
Keywords
African Americans, reconstruction, emancipation, freedom, Blacks, family law, law and race, legal history
Recommended Citation
Jessica Dixon Weaver, Elusive Freedom: African American Families in the Reconstruction Era, in Centering Families of Color: A Reimagination of Family Law 16, 16–35 (R.A. Lenhardt & Nancy E. Dowd eds., 2026)
