Lifting the Chains: The Black Freedom Struggle Since Reconstruction

Duke University historian Chafe (Remembering Jim Crow) asserts in this persuasive study that previous accounts of the fight for racial equality in the U.S. have not acknowledged that “change happens from the bottom up, not the top down.” Grounding his analysis in the archive of oral histories and documentary films that he and a colleague established at Duke 50 years ago, Chafe highlights lesser-known moments in the freedom struggle that reveal strong grassroots networks. Among other insights, he points out that all-Black institutions like churches, schools, and fraternal lodges were hotbeds of Black activism where new generations were educated about the history of the struggle. Elsewhere, he spotlights instances of militant resistance, noting that Black residents of Guilford County, N.C., took up arms in 1895 to defend a courthouse and prevent a Black prisoner from being lynched, and recounting how the North Carolina A&T football team protected student protesters from white gangs during a 1960 lunch counter sit-in in Greensboro, N.C. This bottom-up approach supports Chafe’s claim that Black communities were responsible for advances in African American life, with white allies playing a supportive but marginal role and politicians rarely taking the lead. Drawing on a deep well of firsthand accounts, Chafe paints a vivid, lively portrait of Black political life in America. It’s an important contribution to the history of race in America. (Aug.)