Our Brother in Black: His Freedom and His Future
by Atticus G. Haygood
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Originally published in 1881, and revised by the author in 1889, Our Brother in Black: His Freedom and His Future is Atticus G. Haygood's concise and insightful study of race relations in the post-bellum American South. Dr. Haygood, president of Emory College from 1875-1884, reflects Southern progressive intellectualism in the aftermath of the American Civil War and consequent Reconstruction. At the core of Haygood's writing and thinking is an unflinching belief that God's hand was in the show more events expanding African slavery to American shores, the cataclysmic Civil War, and the ill-fated, short-circuited efforts to usher former slaves across the threshold to full citizenship. Central, too, is Haygood's resolution that all men of faith, regardless of skin color, can share common rights and responsibilities within a single free society, working for its progress and defending its liberties. show lessTags
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A re-print of the author's 1889 revision of the 1881 original. The author engages in a social analysis of the plight of African-Americans of 1881, not long after emancipation and before the prevalence of Jim Crow laws, a small period of time in which African-Americans could easily vote.
The author is a Southern liberal, one who used to support slavery but turned and saw its ills. The author believed that his fellow white Americans, Northern and Southern, had a moral obligation to better the condition of the African-Americans in the South, particularly in terms of education. As a Methodist bishop, the author believed firmly in God's providence and therefore sought to find some kind of providential reason for the forced movement, slavery, show more and then emancipation of the slaves, and believed that it was for the furtherance of the Gospel among the African-Americans, some of whom who could then take the Gospel back to their original African lands.
The author would be considered a racist today, but no more so than pretty much everyone of his day: they all believed in the superiority of the "Anglo-Saxon race." To that end, the author's attitude is extremely patronizing toward his African-American fellow-citizens. The author is able to admit the humiliation of the South in the Civil War and the necessary consequences that came from it, yet remains proud enough to defend the Southerners on many fronts and to provide a more rosy than likely accurate picture of his fellow white Southerners of his day.
The 1889 revision includes the author's response to an article from a Senator Eustis and many favorable responses to the author's original response.
This book is a valuable counterweight to the standard picture of the post-war South, reminding us that not every white person hated or feared African-Americans nor desired to lynch them or do them harm, and that many, as far as they were able, were sympathetic toward the African-Americans and sought their betterment. A most helpful primary source for the post-war South. show less
The author is a Southern liberal, one who used to support slavery but turned and saw its ills. The author believed that his fellow white Americans, Northern and Southern, had a moral obligation to better the condition of the African-Americans in the South, particularly in terms of education. As a Methodist bishop, the author believed firmly in God's providence and therefore sought to find some kind of providential reason for the forced movement, slavery, show more and then emancipation of the slaves, and believed that it was for the furtherance of the Gospel among the African-Americans, some of whom who could then take the Gospel back to their original African lands.
The author would be considered a racist today, but no more so than pretty much everyone of his day: they all believed in the superiority of the "Anglo-Saxon race." To that end, the author's attitude is extremely patronizing toward his African-American fellow-citizens. The author is able to admit the humiliation of the South in the Civil War and the necessary consequences that came from it, yet remains proud enough to defend the Southerners on many fronts and to provide a more rosy than likely accurate picture of his fellow white Southerners of his day.
The 1889 revision includes the author's response to an article from a Senator Eustis and many favorable responses to the author's original response.
This book is a valuable counterweight to the standard picture of the post-war South, reminding us that not every white person hated or feared African-Americans nor desired to lynch them or do them harm, and that many, as far as they were able, were sympathetic toward the African-Americans and sought their betterment. A most helpful primary source for the post-war South. show less
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Race and Racism in America
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- Sociology, Nonfiction, Anthropology, Biography & Memoir, Tween
- DDC/MDS
- 301.451 — Social sciences Social sciences, sociology & anthropology Sociology and anthropology Formerly: Social structure
- LCC
- E185 .H33 — History of the United States United States Elements in the population Afro-Americans Status and development since emancipation
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