A01=Mitch Kachun
abolition era cultural politics
African American civil society
African American heritage studies
African American history
African American intellectual histo
African American nationalism
African American oratory history
African American political culture
African American social thought
African diaspora commemoration
antislavery movement heritage
Author_Mitch Kachun
Black Atlantic history
Black civic engagement
Black commemorative traditions
Black community organizing
Black leadership conflicts
Black press traditions
Black protest traditions
Black public sphere development
Category=JBCC6
Category=JBSL
Category=JHB
Category=NHTS
collective identity building
community solidarity rituals
cultural expression as politics
cultural nationalism in Black communities
cultural performance studies
emancipation period observances
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
freedom anniversary rituals
freedom culture in America
grassroots political movements
historical Black journalism
historical festival practices
historical race relations
inclusive historical memory
justice-oriented historical movements
memory and identity formation
memory politics in the United States
national belonging struggles
nineteenth century Black activism
nineteenth century cultural history
origins of modern Black holidays
post-slavery public ceremonies
postbellum social movements
public memory scholarship
public performance of identity
public ritual and power
race uplift ideology
racial representation in public life
ritual and resistance history
symbolic freedom practices
symbolic politics and race
transnational Black traditions
Product details
- ISBN 9781558495289
- Weight: 333g
- Dimensions: 153 x 225mm
- Publication Date: 01 Mar 2006
- Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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With the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade in 1808, many African Americans began calling for "a day of publick thanksgiving" to commemorate this important step toward freedom. During the ensuing century, black leaders built on this foundation and constructed a distinctive and vibrant tradition through their celebrations of the end of slavery in New York State, the British West Indies, and eventually the United States as a whole.
In this revealing study, Mitch Kachun explores the multiple functions and contested meanings surrounding African American emancipation celebrations from the abolition of the slave trade to the fiftieth anniversary of U.S. emancipation. Excluded from July Fourth and other American nationalist rituals for most of this period, black activists used these festivals of freedom to encourage community building and race uplift.
Kachun demonstrates that, even as these annual rituals helped define African Americans as a people by fostering a sense of shared history, heritage, and identity, they were also sites of ambiguity and conflict. Freedom celebrations served as occasions for debate over black representations in the public sphere, struggles for group leadership, and contests over collective memory and its meaning.
Based on extensive research in African American newspapers and oration texts, this book retraces a vital if, often overlooked, tradition in African American political culture and addresses important issues about black participation in the public sphere.
By illuminating the origins of black Americans' public commemorations, it also helps explain why there have been increasing calls in recent years to make the "Juneteenth" observance of emancipation an American - not just an African American - day of commemoration.
In this revealing study, Mitch Kachun explores the multiple functions and contested meanings surrounding African American emancipation celebrations from the abolition of the slave trade to the fiftieth anniversary of U.S. emancipation. Excluded from July Fourth and other American nationalist rituals for most of this period, black activists used these festivals of freedom to encourage community building and race uplift.
Kachun demonstrates that, even as these annual rituals helped define African Americans as a people by fostering a sense of shared history, heritage, and identity, they were also sites of ambiguity and conflict. Freedom celebrations served as occasions for debate over black representations in the public sphere, struggles for group leadership, and contests over collective memory and its meaning.
Based on extensive research in African American newspapers and oration texts, this book retraces a vital if, often overlooked, tradition in African American political culture and addresses important issues about black participation in the public sphere.
By illuminating the origins of black Americans' public commemorations, it also helps explain why there have been increasing calls in recent years to make the "Juneteenth" observance of emancipation an American - not just an African American - day of commemoration.
MITCH KACHUN is associate professor of history at Western Michigan University.
