idea this nation would exist forever, and that no state had a right to leave it. that thatnic is it man's daughter would marry robert e. lee, who became the great confederate general and perhaps the man who came closest that any other man in history to destroying it, the nation that was created during the american revolution? announcer: for the complete schedule, go to c-span.org. up next, we hear from a panel that discussed how black americans understood freedom through the lens of economics, marriage, and citizenship. this was part of a three-day conference cohosted by the smithsonian national museum of african american museum and culture, and the us oracle association. it was called the future of the american -- african-american

path. this is an hour and 45 minutes. eric foner: i am eric foner from the columbia university, moderating this second session on slavery and freedom. i want to begin by thanking the organizers of this excellent conference. we all know how much work went into, you know, putting this whole thing together. thanks to those at the museum and the american historical association that have been so active in getting this conference organized. , i gave my last class at columbia university. i am now writing off -- riding off into the sunset. [applause] retirement.-- of and so i ask if you will indulge me for just a minute as i reflect briefly on my own experience in relation to this

field of african american history. which is a little, it is sort of emblematic of the many things that have happened the last couple of generations. i grew up in a family in which african-american history, although utterly ignored in the school education that i got in grade school and high school, nonetheless, the black experience was considered, in my family, central to american history. duboisison and debbie b were friends of -- paul robe dubois were talked about. i have a photo sitting on paul r obeson's shoulders. at age two, it was a very long way up. he was a big guy. wasmy uncle philip foner

prolific in the field of african american history. my father jack foner, also it historian, published a book on the black military experience. like clay carson who mentioned this last night, i took part on the march on washington 1963, but i older than he is, so i took part in the much less well-known march on washington , not a well-known part of our history. as an undergraduate at columbia, i was lucky enough to take my first history course with the legendary teacher james p. sinson, who assigned dubois' literature, even though the was not told him that done at an ivy league institution. in 1969, i taught the first course in african-american history ever given in the over 200 year history of columbia university, so the field was

just beginning to get going outside of the black universities where had always existed, of course. among the students in my classes over the years whom i am very proud our eric holder, former attorney general. i gave him the b. [applause] [laughter] think -- that was sort of a respectable grade back then. i think president obama recently issued an executive order raising that grade two and a -- an a. and among my students, former students here at the conference are rita roberts and stephanie smallwood who are blogging away at this moment, i think. barber rams be, who we saw in action last night, and it won't surprise you that when she was an undergraduate, she kind of split her time between excellent historical work and organizing

to get columbia to divest its holdings in companies that were connected with south africa, so she was a student activist from the very beginning. and leslie harris, who was also in our program, was one of our students. and i chaired the committee later on that established the institute for research in african-american studies at columbia and hired as it were first director the late and much lamented manning marable. all of this to say is why i really want to tip my hat to bonnie bunch and his coworkers, because this museum that is going to open soon is really a dream come true for all of us who have labored in this venue of african-american history for a long, long time. so thank you lonnie and those working with you. [applause]

so now that the first panel has answered the ,uestion who is black america this panel has to decide what the narrative paradigm is that best structures african-american history. as you all know, one of the most influential works in this area in the 20th century was john hope franklin's textbook from slavery to freedom. that is a simple, compelling idea from slavery to freedom. it suggests that emancipation is the pivot of the black experience, and perhaps of the whole american experience. there was also an alternative textbook out there, which many of you are familiar with, by meyer and brodrick, from plantation to ghetto. that suggests a somewhat more downbeat kind of history, right, one form of exploitation succeeded by another form of

exploitation. but i think it is fair to say the slavery to freedom narrative has been the predominant one, although under considerable challenge of lately in the current issue of the journal of southern history, carol imber 10 writing thele in free marriage of, a review essay of recent books that challenge the celebratory account from slavery to freedom. escapeike jim downs' from freedom, more than freedom, stacy smith's freedom frontier in the west.labor so one of the things i hope the panel will enable us to discuss is if this familiar slavery to freedom paradigm still make sense as a way of understanding the trajectory of black history, and why is this moment, when people might want to feel

celebrity rate -- we are coming arehe -- celebratory -- we coming to the end of the first african-american president, why so many historians are understanding the limitations of emancipation and its aftermath and celebrating the transition. what are the implications for understanding slavery and freedom trend toward globalizing american history and african-american history, and also emphasizing connections between slavery and capitalism, which we will hear about shortly. when the interpretive focus becomes so broad, so abstract, how can historical actors be factored in to the story? what roles can slave resistors play in a story which is operating at a global level?

and then there is the question of reconstruction and how we want to think about that period after slavery, should be viewed as an episode of american democracy as dubois saw it, should be seen as a southern event -- what happened to the american component, as we include the west and expand its timeframe? does the centering the --de-centering the south take away from it? existw does emancipation in public consciousness, in movies, in memorials, in flags, and how should we commemorate it in historical museums? anyway, these are all big questions. we have a panel of big thinkers who can look at them. their biographies and

photographs, some of the photographs are integrated -- -- antiquated -- [laughter] booklet thatn the we have, i will not repeat their bios. this is the order in which they will speak. number one, walter johnson from harvard university. brenda stephenson from ucla. unfortunately, brenda was stuck in berlin yesterday. her plane was canceled, she is in the air as we speak, so i will read the remarks. secondly, unfortunately. from is thavolia glymph duke, and then annette gordon-reed. .his is a fat 10 minutes i turned the floor over to walter johnson. [applause]

walter johnson: thank you to eric foner. i was not raised on the shoulders of paul robeson. i did however once meet eric foner. [laughter] thank you to the sponsors and dana elliott. it has been and are to be here and to reacquaint myself and to meet so many people who are my heroes. i want to ignore it particularly my advisor -- acknowledge particularly my advisor who was the first person who helped me think through the fact that if we are actually going to try to write african-american history, we need to imagine we are going

to reconstruct the very categories of historical analysis around the historical experience of african-american people, and that is an idea i think has been shared and expressed by a lot of the folks in this room. it was from mel paynter that i first learned that. i want to try today to do a little bit around the question of freedom, and to try to think through a notion of freedom and to figure out how it sort of -- i would say -- a foreshortened version of freedom has talked about the biography of slavery. i will pick up the pace. brenda said i actually get her time. [laughter] walter johnson: i don't think eric god that one. i want to -- got that one.

i want to begin from a familiar state. we have the standards on history. the thing is that slavery dehumanized enslaved people. ilot of problems and paul -- want to very briefly, i will try to do everything briefly and stop saying i will do it briefly. i think part of the problem with that statement is that the institution of slavery is in thest infinite variety, terrible and inhumane things human beings do to one another. to cast it as the opposite of what it is human beings do is to misunderstand the character of human being. i think there is an implication of permanence in the notion of dehumanization that is baleful. i think it is much more

productive to think of the ,ondition of enslaved humanity what it means to be a human being under the conditions of slavery. i also think many of the terroristic and perverse notions of slaveholding are alive with the human victim. think that there is a deep ethical problem in historians of the 20th and 21st centuries casting doubt on the humanity of past historical actors, and it does raise the question of who gets the say when these humann-american people or again. and finally the statement about our own perceived ethical distance from the perpetrators, our ability to cast them as in human and take that and attribute it as a characteristic of the victims, they have been

dehumanized. there is an essential difference between arguing someone acted inhumanely and arguing the effect of their action was to dehumanize the victim. slippages, i these think there is an on the knowledge to ethical premise. unacknowledged ethical premise. i read this book not because it is particularly obtuse, but it is emblematic of presumptions which frame a lot of work done on the issue of slavery and some of the work i have done on the history of slavery. explicitlylicitly or recognized the independent will and volition of their slaves, they acknowledged the humanity

of their bond people, extracting this admission was in fact a form of slavery assisting. opposed toves verify two dehumanization inherit in their slightest -- in their status. so that collapses three different things. it collapses the notion of humanity into the notion of resistance, right? people are human when they resist. so then there's the question of despair. despair? enslaved what about enslaved suicide? and correspondingly, we see we do not have histories of these things the way we should, with the exception of mel paynter's slavery. the other thing is it leaves out the possibility of enslaved

flourishing, for reasons we can all dispense the minute i say to the words happy and slave together. nevertheless, we have no history of laughter and slavery. we have a very, very thin history of love. there is a collapse of enslaved humanity into resistance, i.e. into the terms of enslaved people's relationship with slaveholder. finally this collapsing of the notion of resistance into independent will and volition, another thing will focus on the most. there is a collapsing notion into our particular form -- a particular form what i would call the notion of what a human being is, a person who makes independent decisions. that is a notion of human tojectivity i will note annette turner. net turner does not think he is

a person who has independent will and volition. he thinks he is the fingertip of god's providence. he acts on the notion of sacred duty rather than independence. i want to call that into question. now the thing that i guess i want to confidently say is that that figure of freedom is the very finger of freedom that is being promulgated all over the war -- world by the european slaveholding powers as the notion of freedom. it is a notion of freedom, freedom based on the rights of citizens that is historically framed by the problem of slavery and empire. i am interested in trying to do in the slightly longer and more convoluted paper is to try to rework our notions

of justice and human rights in the light of human slavery. treat slavery as the central moral event of modernity, to try to freedomized justice and from the perspective of slavery and really the perspective of the confident of africa. just the continent of africa. doing so would require us to give a thorough going account of what sort of institution slavery was and what we think of the enduring ethical and historical relevance of slavery, which i will do in the remaining three minutes i have. [laughter] following cedric is, this isd web dubo the dubois of reconstruction as well as work water and the essay

on white folk -- which if you should. read, you listening to the rest of what i at least have to say. i want to try to think about slavery as a form of racial capitalism. i want to look at exploitation through capitalism and racial phobia,on through negro through common sense as identical to one another in many ways. it would take a lot of work to actually substantiate for you the notion that when we say the word capitalism, we should always say the word slavery. they are not two different things. that is why i want to say venture capitalism, but i will give you a few examples of why i want us to try to push, to insist upon that racial capitalism, to insist upon an

analysis of anti-blackness alongside our analysis, inextricable from the analysis of capitalism. if you cannot use the word thetalism to describe exportation for sale of 12 million people across the suretic ocean, i am not what usefulness the term has. it seems to me that is the first challenge to the history of capitalism that does not acknowledge slavery and its central aspect. map what we take to be the capitalist economy of the 19th century, particularly great britain, the capitalist economy for those who want to define capitalism as if it was only something that happened in manchester. if you actually make a map of that economy, you recognize it is an agricultural economy that

works on a yearly basis of advances. what happens, the constant -- cotton merchants in liverpool make credit advances to planters in louisiana. and those advances are made the cotton crop. sometimes the cotton crop comes in short, and in the advanced from liverpool to louisiana is not going to get paid off by the time it actually comes in. so then there is a debt, and that debt has to be collateralized. so there is the atlantic system of slavery, which everybody centurydged in the 19th to be the moment where capitalism dawned in the cotton mills in lancashire. so there are cotton mills and human beings. slavery was capitalist. enslaved people were the capital. the other form of collateral is

land, and that is land that we here relateind of to the paper that time i'll did milesorning -- that ty did this morning. notably, that land is covered by the supreme court decision, macintosh of 1823, by colleague gordon-reed could correct what i'm going to say, but this is a foundational case of united states property law. , tryo back to the origins to go back and figure out why is it we legally owned the things we owned. at the bottom of that, we see johnson versus macintosh. this is the case which says that native americans are not allowed to sell land to individual white settlers.

all native american land must be federaled under the government. it was to be just a beaded through a capitalist land market to white southerners. bare bottom for property relations in the united states, there is imperialism, racial difference, and capitalist mode of distribution. that is the foundation. so those are some of the pathways i would try to use to elucidate this notion of racial capitalism, which i can do more on the questions and elucidate in the paper, in the paper that is posted on the website. what i what to do with the little bit of time and i have remaining is outline what i of bringingnefit slavery to the center of our question of what we call human rights or global claims of

justice to understand slavery in this particular version of slavery i have just tried to outline as a central, moral event of modernity. amountf all, it is the of the p of injustice from the standpoint of african america, native america, the global south and rather than the global north, not from europe. it makes europe a central problem rather than the site of the elaboration of notions of justice. , and this just goes to some of the questions earlier, it is focused on the question of extraction and distribution with areas of the world. it proposes a generalization of the account of the historical wrongs based on the experience of those in europe's dark

working-class, which takes the experience of dark working-class of the world and generalizes that as the experience we should use to characterize justice everywhere. deep.historically it analyzes and emphasizes ways of present distribution and production related to past patterns. it is in that way, i think, a powerful antidote to colorblind liberalism, right? you need to think about historical distribution, not simply contemporary distributions. emphasis on slavery as an apparent somatic wrong goes to gender and sexuality, relating alienation, the subjection of one group of people to the purposes of

another or the core feature of the human wrongs of slavery. of the the core feature human wrongs of slavery. it brings gender and sexuality to the heart of our question of global justice. finally, and i think that this is important, it wants really to understand the history of capitalism and slavery, one would write a paper about the instrumental is asian of human ization-- instrumental to think about the development of cotton plants, cotton plants genetically hybridized to meet the capacity of a human hand, and human beings were ethically and violently narrowed down to the capacity of their hands. those two things, the instrumental is asian -- instrumentalization of human

beings and the crop is something we want to imagine from the standpoint of slavery, the history of slavery, we can theorize justice that is vigorously environmental. it is not simply green. it is not dedicated on politics or sustainability of standing order. it is theorized according to the politics of sustainability of a future imagined of a more just order. thank you very much. [applause] eric foner: thank you, walter. isnda stevens' paper entitled, us never had big funerals or weddings on the place. the ritualized black family in the wake of freedom. searching back over the long arc clear life, lorna was

about her complaints in rural life in mississippi. slave people could not create, celebrate, protect or ritualized family life. according to her, there were few ritualized events that signified the beginning or end of kinship ties. us never had big funerals or weddings on the place, didn't have no marrying of any kind. folks in those days it just sort of hitched up together and call themselves man and wife. it might not appear to be correct, or at least not applicable. with regard to marriage, some enslaved blacks in the south even had elaborate weddings. but there is a more profound truth about the social identity and status of enslaved blacks. none of their weddings seemed legally binding, and the actual bride and groom freely chose designated aspects of their

marriage rituals. it was not in usual -- unusual for slaveowners to assist with technicalities of the marriage rituals to turn this into something of a minstrel show for a white audience's benefit. while there is little doubt many married, especially those who did so of their own accord, typically found some meaning and even joy in the events that constituted that they were husband and wife, these rituals were fraught with the irony that defined the slaves life, the irony of being both a person and property. no matter how elaborate or cursory the marriage ritual, enslaved husband and wives were always aware of its devastating limitations. slave masters and mistresses have viewed the slave marriage ritual in other ways, as a form of entertainment. the beginning of the birth of new slave property as a way to

demonstrate their benevolence, as a form of sublunary control through the threat of filial loss. they do not conceive of the slave marriage ritual as a romantic, sacred, legally binding event as ideally expressed in the property world of the southern gentry. i talked this morning looks at the marital rituals of black southerners before and after the u.s. civil war as a window into the ways african-americans bought freedom in the 1860's and the aunt, with public and private ritualized events that differentiated and designated their new status and human dignity as unfettered men and women. when no longer a bondwoman for example, the same people complained of having no family signifying rituals slaves, made certain her new free status showed that market of familial behavior that had been denied

her when she was enslaved. two years after the civil war, dora married freeman have a franks. she chose her own husband, married legally and bore her children legitimately. she had a big wedding with the summer -- followed by a supper. on theed, when i was constable, i met dora and was married. it was a big wedding and fees. like so many others that struggled to define and live in freedom after he met the patient, family life as a free and ted frank's meant in part of the exercise of legal and public familial ceremonies such as weddings. unlike these marital performances that had occurred before emancipation, this pronounced a black family, community, and larger part of the southern world that free men

and women had a right to claim marital relations, claim control over the intimate aspects of their bodies, to live under one roof, and to maintain their children. temple was certain white, at age 31, she was glad when the suit -- why, at age 31, she was glad when the civil war ended. her fat husband -- her and her husband worked be together all the time. her husband was coded as it united family. i was glad the war stopped, she said, because then me and exit or could be together all the time instead of just saturday and sunday. hundreds had been married, and wanted to marry after slavery ended did not hesitate to participate in new legally binding nuptials. slaveryw a line between

and freedom. post slavery wedding rituals also seem to signify personal choice and were an opportunity for black men and women to openly display african-american romantic love and cultural ascetics. freedom after war also met the ability to profess one's beauty, one talent, once emotion, and one's intellect, personal attributes that had been routinely destroyed during slavery. among the confusing, complicated, and somewhat conflicted patchwork of governmental organizations, military, teachers and former owners, most freed couples sought legitimacy for their marital relations and their children. those who jumped the gun before emancipation went right to the point of why they chose to remarry after gaining freedom. they wanted to ritualized their marriages in the manner that ritualized typically

theirs, not as slaves. five other marriages, thomas pope recalls, a man who could read and write to marry them. he married lots of blacks then. after the war, many blacks read over again because they did not know if the first marriage was good or not. charles davis explains it in a similar fashion. my mommy and daddy got married after freedom because they did not get the time for a wedding before. they called themselves man and wife for a long time before they were really married. willis dukes was absolute about the legitimacy of his postbellum marriage, saying we did not jump over no broom, neither. withre like white folks flowers and cake and everything. they shared the same marriage rituals as whites, their marriage had to be legitimate. , i clark was also emphatic

had three wives. i didn't have no weddings, but i marry them according to live. my first two wives is dead. a a castn had dressed and she stepped over a broomstick. then they had a real wedding with a preacher. that cost one dollar. mary reynolds also had been married by stepping over a broom. after freedom, i put in the book by the preacher. those who decided and had the ability to marry as individual couples brought serious thought and planning to their manifestations of the marital bonds. clothing, bonds, venue decor, audio composition, -- audience composition, and the dance party were all important to consider in these marriage rituals. spokef these choices also to the ascetic values of late

19th century southern blacks and their skills as designers, seamstresses, that they brought with them out of slavery into lives as free people. some of these preparations also suggest communal efforts and ties, black and white, that lives southern black after slavery ended. postbellum lives indicated in the assemblage process of clothing and adornment for body, hair, hands, and feet, those who were operative members of their communities met with free people . some of the activity indicates as well active economic relationships between working white and black women at a time when fledging local southern economies were a burden for both. other aspects that benefited from contributions also suggest ties across racial lines, some

more cutting than others. employer donated her wedding cake. she was subsidized by whites. they had good reason for lending a helping hand. given the difficulty in retaining workers after , many were a just to impress their employees, many of them former slaves, with tokens of generosity which suggested they supported black families who were loyal and good workers. moreover, slaves like the position of economic superiority had encouraged the other -- ever popular myth of southern paternity. documented sustained black .conomic independence this made for bailing the skies the lingering financial

exploitation whites imposed on black laborers, leaving little ability to fund their wedding or create new separate households. black workers, in conclusion, also may have been able to leverage their employers' need for labor to get them the assistance they needed to have these elaborate marriage rituals. so thanks to brenda, we will welcome her when she gets here, and now thavolia glymph. [applause] thavolia glymph: good morning. isthe title of my talk between slavery and freedom, and , but not completely. i try to follow some of his

instructions. so one day on a baltimore street corner, it was february 1961. two black women were overheard discussing the state of the union. the dispute between the north and the south. said, "wait until thenourth of march, and when i slept in my mistresses place." it was no date stashed out of thin air. to be the date inaugurated. event,that day and that the to the grasses saw the es sawg -- the two negress the opening of the ground. unlike the president, they

prepared to lead a different war. he prepared to lead a war to reunite the country as a slave country. they represented the black people who made note detours through middle ground -- you made no detours through middle ground, and you what the central issue was. by the time the cataract -- confederates had been read to defeated, the slaves had won big and small victories. they work to redraw the map of the united states. when johnson's name appeared for the wartime federal role, and she described as a citizen colored, that description registered a very small but a very big victory. celinda johnson would have to

wait another four years before the 14th amendment came at her citizenship was ratified, but in 1864, an agent of the federal , a slavet listed her woman, as a citizen, signaled just how far the war to put down the slaveholders had come. just how for the union just how far the union had been transformed, in no small part to the people like celinda. she was joined hundreds of thousands with slaves that fled plantations and forced a merger of the union war and the slave'' war. like many mergers today, it was a messy coming together, always fraught with the possibility that one or the other would withdraw from the merger. but slave resistance and that

union redirected both the course of the war and events in patient -- and emancipation. lincoln admitted as much in his famous letter to the innocence -- citizens of illinois. he told them in no uncertain terms that they could "fight on to save the union exclusively," but he also reminded them he had issued a proclamation to help them in saving the union. and here of course, he was part to gillooly talking about -- he was particularly talking about blacks, their service and freedom were inextricably linked. he would not take the proclamation back. he wrote "the party would be elected president for the restoration platform would lose the colored force, and that force being lost, the union

would be powerless." lincoln increasingly understood also, as did congress and union commanders, that women, black women, the mothers, wives, sisters, daughters would have to be offered the same deal, freedom. for negro women and children have less time, sherman wrote, they become a fruitful source of trouble. over the past four decades, scholars have demolished the long-standing argument of historians that portrayed slavery as benevolent institution and sidelined the contributions black people made to union and to freedom. they no longer tolerate such caudle, therobert founding member of the southern historical situation that said

slave hours were long but not strenuous. they had never known freedom. he looked upon slavery not as aggradation but as a routine. -- degradation but as a routine. but we would not look at this nonsense of john c calhoun that slavery was a mercy. despite this, a large body of scholarship is looking at great and gritty details, the process of emancipation, we are still struggling with the question of what came next, what the slaves got a return, what freedom meant . it is now a hotly contested question among scholars. i want to talk about whether or -- somee consequences scholars now have concluded it seems that slavery and the civil

damaged so bad, so black people that when freedom came, they could hardly stand on the ground. asking, did be freedom even ever come? the slow and tepid response of link its administration for what was a humanitarian crisis -- of administration for what was a humanitarian crisis represented a huge obstacle in the bid for freedom. this response was wittingly and unwittingly to the violence of the picture of emancipation, but once the federal government had embraced emancipation, whether it was tepid or not, it had occurred. the nations commitment to slavery. so i want to make two important points to counter the recent scholarship eric mentioned in a recent article in the journal of

southern history. the vast majority of black people did not die in the civil war. they lived. they fought to live. struggles inast the formation of a radical policy that would impose -- form the postwar struggle. worker tomack to the host who said, if the master can try for the safety of a mobilized white majority, the slaves dared back. they were ravaged by the slave trade and arbitrary. this begins with recognition that enslaved people expected to fight. they expected they would have to fight for their freedom. they understood the brutality

that had come with the making of slavery that would accompany its unmaking. that they would die and suffer many would be for any got to freedom. that their families would be apart, as they gathered up their families to flee the plantation, they knew they were in for harder times. while the 150th anniversary of the civil war has no past, and past, andf us -- now for many of us, thank god, we look at postwar amendments. the work of figuring out what freedom meant remains unfinished. civil war refugee camps are one place where we can take the temperature of this question. the enslaved people has no parallel people in u.s. history. trade moved slave

one million, but that was read out over 70 years. the midst of war, enslaved people and free people that experienced trauma, broken and shattered by violence, they experienced a new disease environment a growing their regime. more,ey also experienced and most of these people who ran away ended up in refugee camps, where women and children. the fugitive history of these women and children, their experience as refugees in refugee camps, and the punitive federal policy they faced understanding what freedom meant , civil war refugee camps were places of trauma, containment, discipline, surveillance and the redeployment of notions of purity and solutions. so we might work to extend, for

example, these interventions about how language is a civilization and race and radical prospect resonated -- languages of civilization and race and radical prospect resonated with in the american way. forthis is a proving ground segregation and the separation of black and native people. i went to argue that we might extend the proving ground to the civil war. some of the men who were in the war against native americans received their basic training in the civil war against african-american women and children as overseers of refugee camp. for ideas about a racial containment and cultivates asian circulated freely. --t pulled in by --

containment and cultivation circulated freely. losses.uld be tragic it would be losses that have long-term political and psychological consequences. it would be women like margaret ferguson who came into a refugee camp in a seated and was a gangrene slag, her to be a her tibiaosed and -- partly exposed and would be amputated. there were women who saw slavery and life in refugee camp, decided to abort her child just as she was making it to freedom. facing hard decisions, that exist only in the context of the hard road to freedom. there is also the revisionist

historical scholarship. people look at this evidence. some historians see them as proof of our need to temporary came.nt that emancipation some would see them as adjusting that freedom was too hard for black people to make it onto the ground, the making of freedom was too hard for black people to ,ake it onto the ground something more to extend the war they had been fighting. i'd i want to ask that we back off that. that we think to about emery how they built new refugee camps. , born ao remember ashby slave in kentucky and who made

it to freedom and had joined to with hers to kansas husband and children. i wanted to step back and to remember that it mattered that the violence suffered in the war came on the heels of a centuries long business model that the united states had celebrated what walter jones calls the mothering and miss naming of the enslaved people. it did not end this destruction, but it did mandate this nation would have to decide freedom anew. we make a hard turn in the accomplished too little to matter to much. like all war, this generated misery and death, and it did not leave untouched noncombatants who had no arms, no plans to the professional study of the history of war.

no matter how hard it was to freedom made an important difference. there had been and would be slavery. where the process of emancipation was prolonged and contested, places where war generated refugees and atrocities, places where slaveholders would be forced to their knees. the american civil war was not exceptional in these regards, but the history and battle for freedom in this country still remains to be fully integrated in its national and global dimensions. i want no into that here, because i know i am out of time. i went to end, though, with this idea that comes with many historians. ordinary people did ordinary things with the most difficult circumstance.

from time.this comes enslaved in the border states of missouri, only 60 miles from the union stronghold at st. louis, luisa alexander was out of the reach of the terms of the american proclamation. but she wrote her husband she was convinced freedom would come to her, that it would only come that the point -- at the point of a bayonet. it was a resolution she welcomed, and a resolution through which she secured her freedom and we fought to applaud that kind of resolution. thank you. [applause] annette gordon-reed: i would

like to thank the organizers for of inviting me to be a part of this vibrant conference. i am always happy to share a stage with eric. .iving out people's grades [laughter] annette gordon-reed: talking about people's age in reference to their photograph. who are you talking about? but i am going to focus on my presentation of representations of slavery and memories of slavery in our every day environment. after the events in ferguson, ,fter the events in charleston as you well know, there was a sea change in attitudes, particularly in the parts of who wanted to write

a different story or to question the story that had been told about the way we viewed memorials, symbols, things that represent slavery in our everyday life. and you know across college campuses in this country as well as overseas that this is a global effort to try to make a difference, understanding the meaning of freedom by not accepting things that had been accepted as a matter of course. many people, as i am sure all of you know, the famous notion that the south lost the war but one of the peace, in that they were able to rewrite the story of what slavery had in about an set the terms of engagement between african-american people in the south and whites in the south. it was an engagement that basically got rid of a monumental thing to get rid of slavery and people. it was a great thing. people savored that moment and struggled and tried to make lives of themselves. what also happened is white southerners were left to do

pretty much what they wanted with what they considered to be there lost property. in doing that, try to be as close to slavery as possible without it actually being slavery. in the process, never really gave up the notion that their cause, was a good cause. erected monuments, had flags for all of the old south. and david blithe, as i am sure you all know, talked about the importance of reconciliation between the north and the south. that took place. black people were left out of that. so slavery was over. we have on paper the legal right of citizenship, but not the actual accoutrements and status of citizens for a very, very long time. it is something we have been

fighting for up until this particular moment. after the terrible events that i mentioned, blacks do this again to challenge the things around them that were the memo oriole is asian of slavery -- memorialization of slavery. happy totion grew up be in these places, and sort of ignored these things. but this is a different generation, and we will talk about this in the question and answer period, to claimy a future their own. in my own university, there was a controversy about the harvard shield. the family had given land that was sold, started the harvard law school, had a shield with three bushels of wheat on it. people did not know -- i went to harvard law school, i had no idea what that meant when we

were there. wheat, i thought it was a symbol of fertility, knowledge and so forth. there we found out this was the shield of the family that owned the slaves. had slaves in massachusetts as well. this story was told to harvard students as they came in to the first year. in the past two years, this knowledge was not known when i was there. and they decided the shield should go. complainedstudents about the statue of cecil rose. and it harvard it was others. the naming of buildings. wilson at princeton, woodrow wilson at princeton. yale, the controversy over john c calhoun. and people suggesting we should have -- they should not have to be in places where people who had done these the various

things were celebrated. things were celebrated. there was pushed back on this from people who said that history is history, and what you should do is not erase history. by erasing these memories. perhaps contextualize things. perhaps leave it as it is or totally rid of it. those were the questions that were presented. i was on a committee that had to figure out what to do about the shield. ofdecision surprise a number people. in this particular instance, i wanted to keep the shield but conceptualize it, but -- contextualize it, but change the way people think about it. symbols are created equal, people are not. their desire for celebration is a line drawing function. we do that all the time. some people can be in, some

people can be out. there is some ways to contextualize things. other things are just too awful to remain. questions about what goes in and what goes out, that is the conversation we ought to have. as a historian, we typically feel, or historians i have spoken to about this, tend to be against the idea of what they would call a racing the past. the question becomes, is moving something and erasure of the past? erasure of the past? i thought after this discussion, the shield was not like the confederate flag, which is an odd notion that after you lose the war, you get to continue to fly your battle flag. that you get to erect monuments to people who basically fired ,gainst, killed union soldiers a flag that flew against the united states america.

we accept it because we accepted the reconciliation david talks about as being necessary, more important than doing justice to african-americans. people, woodrow wilson. woodrow wilson actually sat in this room at a conference. a more problematic figure. very, very racist. no question about it, a white supremacist, not a good guy. at the same time, he is the person who essentially made modern princeton, took it from being just a gentleman's club and made it a real academic institution. it wasn't before, but he actually made modern princeton. he was the president central to the school. john c calhoun, not so much. i said that he could go. [laughter] easily gordon-reed: could go. my advice was taken.

it was not actually given on that score. score, buton that these kinds of questions are sort of very much go with what we talked about this morning, this notion of black identity and how black people see themselves in this particular moment, what they are willing to accept. what young people accept. part of this post racial notion which is problematic in some other ways also comes along with it. it is a very clear sense, clearer that i had, of themselves as being americans and having or should have, people who should have the rights of americans and wanting to create spaces for themselves. i don't want to use the term safe spaces, but i would say , is atful faces -- spaces good question. part of the many struggles after the end of slavery, but the

struggle to belong, to be able to walk down the street. to be able to feel comfortable in places is something i am very, very glad the younger generation has taken up. they, some of them mentioned earlier, how do you bridge the gap between the generations, older and younger? you don't talk to each other, use other language. members of the older generation say this is a trivial matter. there are much more trivial things to do, and there are always no matter how you slice it, but that does not make it a trivial matter. how comfortable you feel. are you american? can you walk around and not have your history, your people ofcredited by the worship people who did not think you are human beings? how do you settle that? i don't have any easy answers to that, but it is something that complicates the question about black identity, complicates our

understanding of slavery and freedom and how we are going to take all of this in by focusing in on the human condition, the individual human conventions and the group dynamic, how people fit. and that is something that is very, very difficult i think to be settled on the question, certainly made in the pages of academic history. this is something that engages the public. it is something that engages not only the african-american family , it has to engage the white public as well. ,here has to be a confrontation i think, a much more general and persistent confrontation to the idea that citizenship is about white. i think there is no question in my mind that is something that is still part of the generalized understanding, that african-american people are interlopers. they are people who are not supposed to be here.

and people who are not supposed to be here don't have the same rights and sort of comfort level that a number of whites feel that they should have, it is not something the blacks should have. i am very, very happy african-american students have challenged that. it is not an easy answer. i am historian. i don't believe in destroying the past, but i also don't believe changing the names of all buildings, changing the moving statues, getting rid of accoutrements of the confederacy , having army bases named after confederate generals -- just an enormous concession to an ideology that we are still living under. it is an ideology of white supremacy that i think the students and their supporters have been fighting against. so this is a battle that i don't think is going away. and i am actually glad as a historian. thank you. [applause]

eric foner: we are going to turn in a second to questions from the audience. there are the two microphones up on the aisles there. people who want to contribute, please go to the microphones. while you are doing that, let me pose one question for the panelists here. you can answer yes or no if you want. going back to john hope franklin ofs emancipation the pivot the african-american, of how we ought to understand the african-american experience in america from the early colonial ariod, or do we need narrative that really displaces emancipation and puts other changes or continuities at the center? who wants to take on that? i could starth:

by saying there is no one emancipation. , whether thatment should be the pivot, i don't think so. i think emancipation more broadly should be a kind of way that we can talk about, right about, established sometimes about the black areas. -- experience. it could have been new york at a much earlier time. right? oh, i am done. eric foner: anyone else want to? a lot of then: conceptual frame for the paper that i just summarized and the way i try to think about these things from mark's essay on the jewish question, that is about jewish emancipation, the ability of jews to become citizens in

europe in the 19th century. what he wrote in that essay is basically that this is the greatest historical achievement of the standing order, but it should not be confused with the genuine human emancipation. important to try to hold both of those things together at once. last night, a lot of the conversation was the frame about between civilip rights and black freedom, with a more thorough notion of black freedom. i want to think about these things, but i want to think about these as identical to one another but also as necessarily contradictory. why not celebrate the extraordinary achievement of civil rights for the extraordinary achievement, extraordinary possibility of emancipation, and at the same time, insist on the notion that it is not genuine human full

going motion of human freedom? , i actually to some degree think it is important to point out as -- this is thishing i learned from dude, wrote this huge book about reconstruction. [laughter] walter johnson: it is important to point out some of the foreshortened characters of freedom, but to celebrate the achievements even as we insist on a more thorough going version of actual human emancipation. annette gordon-reed: i agree with that. it is the pivot, the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments. if you think about citizenship before that time, african-americans don't have citizenship. property. it is not what walter said with thoroughgoing freedom, but we

can't make the claim we can make 14th, 15th the 13th, amendment. that is pragmatically in our law , i think about it legally, this is transformative because you know, freedom and the wonderful light doesn't spring forth immediately. it does not change the fact that before these things, afterwards there is a change. we have no basis before then even talking about the notion of citizenship. citizenship is important in a republic and the countries we are actually living in, you credit that as a sharp break. eric foner: thank you. first person at the microphone there. >> my name is marian anderson from concord, massachusetts. eric foner: can you speak a little closer? >> ever-present historic african-american site -- i

represent historic african-american site there. i want to think you for this cash thank you for this wonderful -- i want to thank you for this wonderful discussion. it seems very difficult to start tearing down thatymbols of atrocities have been thrown on african-americans historically. i agree in particular because of folks like jesse collins, called the invisible, like the fort -- first 14 president had slaves. if we first start tearing down symbols, it would have to be everywhere. washington dc would have to be renamed, for example. example, i saw the korean war memorial and the individual troops in that field. it is powerful. beard of toni morrison,

maybe we just need more memorial like that, individuals coming out of slavery walking across the field, walking away from a ship. that is my first -- eric foner: we have to limit you to one question. does anyone want to respond? annette gordon-reed: i would say yes, we need additional monuments, but as i was suggesting before, not everybody is equally important to the united states of america. most of the confederate generals , if there is a difference between being someone who is a founder of the united states and someone who tried to destroy the united states. so we can start with all of them. [applause] annette gordon-reed: that one is easy to me. it is not just from the standpoint of race. but insult to the union soldiers, people who gave their lives for the union to other than what david talked

about, this notion of reconciliation. it's much more important for them to get along and do justice for african-americans. i don't see how that's a question. washington is not going to be renamed. there is no country without george washington. you just have to take the bitter with the sweet and live with the reality of it. what you have to do is reinterpret and don't lie or hide things about george washington. category in the same as beauregard smith. [laughter] eric: one of the things people forget in this debate is the names of public monuments and buildings get changed all the time. arena in newe

jersey. it's now the izod arena. statee watch the new york theater, but now it's the david coke theater. nobody seems to complain we are racing history when we change the name of something just cousin of money. [applause] i am a little skeptical. we should add monuments. with all of those confederate generals are there in the south of black leaders of reconstruction? of only one i know of is one robert smalls. the absences in our public displays of history are just important as the presences and they reflect the history that a net talked about. i think there's another

position in this conversation between leave them up and take them down and that's the grassroots position which is to vandalize them. [laughter] they society monumental lies is itself, it makes it self vulnerable. one of the things you saw across the south in the aftermath of the police murder of walter scott was people going and spray painting racist on these monuments. grassroots but a i kill her response. that may be a vision of how we might go forward. annette: i think that's why calhoun is so high up there.

>> thank you again. i am a native of tennessee. i am also a millennial. about theint monuments, not only is there a generally shall divide, there is also a regional divide. the confederate flag does not garden same response from me as my friends from new york or new jersey. in having these conversations, they are very passionate. i wanted you to share some of your work. you said you are on a committee at harvard. some symbols could go in some symbols could stay, how do you gauge those conversations in a manner of civility and professionalism, where you can manage all of the emotions. our conversation was

very civil because we are lawyers. [laughter] ofette: if there was a model it was easy, because the thing i am describing here, three bushels of wheat to mean anything. what i wanted was students to be able to say and take control of the narrative of what we were having a big ceremony for our 200th anniversary. we dedicate the shield and the school on behalf of the people who were enslaved at the plantation. it was about the people who were enslaved there. .t's not a picture it's not the confederate flag. this was an easy one for me. out not to be so easy.

separate from a person or a flag, we draw lines all the time. the speed limit is 65 or 75. we do it in our everyday life. this is a conversation people have to have to decide what can stay and what can go. there will be different views about it. i believe it can be done. passion is part of it. you have to keep the end in mind. the community is to be comfortable for the members. if you have that goal in mind, you can put aside passion and your focus on what you want and do the best for the institution or the community. eric: the next person here? >> hello. i graduated from florida state in african-american studies. annette.ion is for a net

mythology going on around about irish people. people don't know the difference between chattel slavery and other forms of slavery. annette: it's what you said at the end. people don't know the difference. people don't know the difference between indentured servitude. i think it comes that there was a lot of oppression of different people throughout history. many people feel that the irish have a right to feel put upon by the way the english treated them. of struggle asy well. that was not slavery by birth. are by appearance

white, even though people looked down upon them, they were able to assimilate into society in way africans of -- african-americans have not then. look what happened to me because the history of oppression in lots of different communities, this just so happens to be a central problem. chattel slavery was a problem from the very beginning, it prevented the creation of the union. it was the rock upon which the union split. we don't have that with the irish slavery. or irish understandings of slavery. it's a me to thing. it's a way to try to put down the african-american claims for rights at the present time to say everybody suffered and suffered it just as much as you did.

to oppression for themselves. there are people trying to minimize african-americans' oppression. >> i am from princeton university. you provoked me and i want to ask an interesting question. you've been provoking me for a while. your paper isf rejecting a usual liberal subject rooted in the distinction between header on a me and autonomy. what would happen to our histories if we stopped reading or understanding freedom as an and as opposed to a practice? freedom actually see

and other conditions of domination if we see freedom is a practice rather than an end? usual, since we were ,ong ago together in a seminar my response is wow. let me see if i can start to answer that. is in my thing i think mind to a certain extent the history of slavery in the united states has been conscripted to the history of a notion of freedom. about history as slavery to freedom, i don't want to reid priddy eight that notion. -- repute he eighth that notion. what we mean by freedom?

economic freedom or a freedom of sexuality or identity, all sorts of things remain part of the struggle. what we get i think is a history in which enslaved peoples into the notion of being liberal individual subjects. many were not. that's my first concern. the notion of freedom within slavery, if we can separate that , which i think is a problem but from a notion i think that's an interesting and cap challenging idea. thoughtsed in my own various kinds of shorthands to try to describe that place for

myself. philosophical baggage i don't entirely understand, but i do try to think about flourishing within slavery. we have a history of slavery where nobody ever makes a joke. imagine that space, a space which is determined by slavery and yet is orthogonal to its domination. a religious space would be another -- nat turner to me is a touchstone for me because of how profoundly obvious it is he makes the limitations of subjectivity. one could equally cite harriet

jacobs. how do you try to map the jacobs'onto harriet struggle. they miss characterize that history. annette: it's difficult to do because we are under siege. when you start thinking about freedom within slavery, you know that has real political consequences for african-americans. people will seize upon that an use that as an excuse for constructing a particular way. it's absolutely clear there were people who made jokes, that people experienced something called happiness that we could record knives among themselves -- recognize among themselves.

it's difficult to do it from a society that is still hostile to african-american humanity. space,ere in a different if we were among ourselves or people who believed in black humanity, we can have those kinds of conversations without fear. it's difficult to have that without fear knowing how it would be used. walter: i think that's what i was trying to say. slips into this idea of the happy slave and that's why we haven't talked about that. i should reference adam green, these are his ideas. ,f the headline it comes out put adam's name on that. i learned something years ago.

she said that she often asked her students if slaves ever had fun. i started asking my students the same question. i think we can't just sit act and say it's too hard, it's too tough to try to overturn this paradigm. when you ask students, it makes them think, and at some point you have to make these small incisions into the larger dialogue. it meant that they were happy to be slaves, thank you for that. that,e: all throughout that's the struggle, to deal differente who have a , but whohip to slavery

are enslaved. it's still tough to do it. you have to write in a way that doesn't send that message, that i'm glad to be a slave. eric: i am going to turn to the audience. we will take three people and make comments on their questions. yes. >> high. i am a graduate student at the university of maryland. i did my undergraduate degree in history at the college of william and mary. with thomas jefferson's statue comes up. i was that one person who felt you are weause starting a dialogue if we're not

respecting other people and how they perceive and interact with symbols and statues and places? idea ofalance the thentextualize asian and dialogue through different symbols and spaces? eric: yes, over here. >> i am with the national museum of natural culture -- african-american history and culture. we are examining the past and looking to the future. there are a lot of digital initiatives taking place. what areas do you feel there are gaps are areas we to focus our attention. the museum is involved in a crowdsourcing partnership to make the records of the

freeman's bureau available online. we're going to take it a step forward and we want to transcribe portions of that record to make them easily accessible to a wider audience. there something we need to focus on it? records or do you have thoughts about what that initiative will transform the way in which you conduct research and the way in which the academy may change were shift? eric: the third here? >> thank you. united kingdom. into the u.n.hs decade for people of african descent. the british government have said that while they remain committed

to racial justice, they have no plans to officially record knives the decade. is much likeo you monuments, is it important for us to recognize this u.n. initiative? is it for the grassroots or should we have official recognition as well? eric: recontextualization and dialogue, what should the museum be doing in terms of records of this era, and the u.n. decade and what we should do about that. anybody want to talk about one of those. annette: have a plan. tell people what you want to have happen. stickers are great.

alternative and there are plenty of ways you plaqueave monuments or a or a center, whatever. if you arey to do it going to take something away or challenge something, it helps to have a plan. i think the history there is so rich, that should be an easy thing to do. eric: is anything going on in this country with the u.n. decade? here we go. >> i also worked at williamsburg. a site where it documents the slave trade all throughout from africa around to the americas. it's not just a site where you learn. if you're going to a place in

the caribbean and you want to learn that history, it tells you places you can go to learn about that history and monuments you can see. sorry. shameless plug. on the digital piece i have a small suggestion. use the university of north carolina collection to look at slave narratives, which is a fantastic resource. it does not have facsimiles. it has transcriptions. i could use 19th-century slave narrative facsimiles. i would be very grateful for that. if you look behind some of these things that seem on the one level to be white supremacist in their symbolism, you will find a deeper level of some white supremacy.

i think that in relation to the refusal of the government to offer any kind of apology for slavery. there are legal implications for doing so. there are legal implications that acknowledge slavery is a wrong perpetrated by the united states of america. it opens a legal avenue to justice claims in the united states. i would not be surprised if there is a similar thing happening. australian writer has a story about a law firm, and american law firm that goes to australia and gives advice to companies about how to apologize, how to draft apologies of aborigines without legal liability.

we have five minutes more. we may not be able to get everybody in. my question is for professor johnson. , you put slavery at the center of capitalism. was that written as an argument for reparations? eric: next? over here? >> i am from the university of washington. thank you for those wonderful presentations. i want you to reflect on where scholarship on slavery and freedom has been and where it might go. it seems we should maybe think about what it would mean or whether we should try to articulate the study of slavery and freedom to the ongoing question of mass incarceration

and to the question of the ongoing operation of slavery -- ongoing proliferation of slavery globally across the 19th century and up to the present moment. i was wondering if he would be willing to reflect on that a little bit. eric: one more person over here. >> i am from new york. bond a question about ship. i wanted to hear about africa. theynk it connects to what were saying about franklin. he talks about misconceptions people have about this idea of freedom. i wanted to hear more of your opinion on that. eric: these are all complicated questions. yourl say, i appreciate point.

there could be or sometimes is a tendency when we celebrate emancipation as we should to suggest slavery is in the past. it is a piece of history. unfortunately, slavery still areas, noty in large to mention mass incarceration. 18th centurynk the to what is going on today is both important and tricky. it's not just to say ok, nothing has changed. we live in a different world and a different stage of capitalism. takeorms in which these are very different. i think connect and back to the past is viable. reparations, johnson and freedom, mass incarceration. anybody want to jump at this? respond, ibegin to

do think that's an overhanging question for all of us. it's a very pertinent question. theoners are excluded from protections of the 13th amendment. slavery is constitutionally legal in the nations prisons. people in the nations prisons are enslaved. that argument is being made right now by prisoners in alabama who are on strike. ofre are all stored -- sorts historical connection. there are resident symbolic connections. there is a direct legal connection. that river ofn dark dreams is a text which is singularly committed to the project of reparations. i have got to say that me andions have been for

inexhaustible source of inspiration and insight. idea thatred by the there isn't a clean dividing line between slavery and freedom and slavery is an active presence in our lives today. a really interesting way, that is what the intellectual contribution has been in the reparations piece in the atlantic. this came up to the present. this is what it would look like. i think the shape of that argument has been very powerful and helpful for me. i will and inspired by the question last night about one

word which would summarize everything. in the 1880's, the new york london andr went to interviewed karl marx. he asked what do you see for the future. marx did not say socialism or common is in. he said struggle. that's what i see in the future. one of the points of this history is the end of slavery did not mean the end of struggle. that will continue forever. thank you all very much. [applause] audience, we now break for lunch. the conference reconvenes in this room at 1:40 p.m. see you all then.

>> 100 years ago, the national parks service was created. and throughout the day, we take you to national parks service sites across the country. live from thee most famous home. join us with your phone calls as we talk with robert stanton.

thursday, the 100th anniversary of the national parks service. live from arlington house at 7:00 on american history tv on c-span3. >> sunday night, nancy eisenberg discusses her book "white trash." >> there were poor white ghettos in places like indianapolis, chicago, they were described in the same derogatory ways of poor blacks who were living in the city. that is part of our history that we don't talk about. we don't want to face up to the fact of how important classes. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern. fromxt, we will hear

adrian harrison. she talks about the george washington she discovered through the books he read and collected throughout his life. how the first commander-in-chief was inspired in -- inspiring to her. the library for the study of george washington at mount burden hosted this hour-long event. host: good evening. i am the founding director here at mount vernon. this is where you are. you are in the library and i would like to welcome c-span here as well tonight. we're thankful to be sponsored by the ford motor company. they have been long time donors.