They Left Great Marks on Me: African American Testimonies of Racial Violence from Emancipation to World War I
by Kidada E. Williams
On This Page
Description
Shares wrenching accounts of the everyday violence experienced by emancipated African AmericansWell after slavery was abolished, its legacy of violence left deep wounds on African Americans’ bodies, minds, and lives. For many victims and witnesses of the assaults, rapes, murders, nightrides, lynchings, and other bloody acts that followed, the suffering this violence engendered was at once too painful to put into words yet too horrible to suppress. In this evocative and deeply moving show more history Kidada Williams examines African Americans’ testimonies about racial violence. By using both oral and print culture to testify about violence, victims and witnesses hoped they would be able to graphically disseminate enough knowledge about its occurrence and inspire Americans to take action to end it. In the process of testifying, these people created a vernacular history of the violence they endured and witnessed, as well as the identities that grew from the experience of violence. This history fostered an oppositional consciousness to racial violence that inspired African Americans to form and support campaigns to end violence. The resulting crusades against racial violence became one of the political training grounds for the civil rights movement. show lessTags
Recommendations
Members
- Recently Added By
Lists
Charleston Syllabus (waitingtoderail)
143 works; 2 members
Author Information
2 Works 165 Members
Kidada E. Williams is an assistant professor of African American history at Wayne State University.
Classifications
- Genres
- Nonfiction, History, General Nonfiction
- DDC/MDS
- 973.0496073 — History & geography History of North America United States United States Ethnic And National Groups Other Groups African Americans African Americans
- LCC
- E185.2 .W67 — History of the United States United States Elements in the population Afro-Americans Status and development since emancipation
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 36
- Popularity
- 800,558
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 5
- ASINs
- 1
