| Edition |
First edition. |
| Description |
x, 497 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm |
|
Pulitzer Prize winners Men University and college faculty members lcdgt |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 425-479) and index. |
| Awards |
Pulitzer Prize, History, 2023. |
| Summary |
"From the American Revolution to Black Lives Matter, Americans have come to associate freedom with the fight of the oppressed for a better world. Few ideas are as central to the national mythos. But whenever the federal government has taken a stand for racial minorities, however halfhearted, white Americans have been quick to weaponize the concept of freedom, framing the state itself as a tyrannical obstacle to their own liberties. In Freedom's Dominion, prize-winning historian Jefferson Cowie lays bare the tales of violence and power that lie beneath America's cherished ideal of freedom, through the history of one seemingly charming place in Alabama-Barbour County and its largest town, Eufaula. Long before it was the launching pad for Alabama governor and prominent segregationist George Wallace, Barbour served as a battleground between local and national authorities. In the 1830s, white intruders battled federal troops sent to evict them from Creek Indian lands--including the village called Eufala Town--that they had unlawfully invaded. Eventually the white resistance prompted the federal government to give up the fight and relocate the Creeks westward, bowing to whites' insistence on their freedom to settle where they wished, and smoothing the way for the growth of plantation slavery. In the wake of the Civil War, US troops backed the right of Barbour County's African Americans to vote--until they didn't, and white residents massacred black voters lined up at the polls on Election day in 1874. During the New Deal, local whites eagerly embraced growing federal spending in Barbour County while steadfastly resisting simultaneous efforts to alter the racial order, using convict labor, tenant farming, and lynching to maintain their freedom to rule. After the federal government finally took an enduring affirmative stance on African American rights during the 1950s and 1960s, it prompted Wallace and his allies to take their fight for freedom to the national stage. When Wallace demanded "Segregation forever!" in his famous 1963 inaugural address, invoking "freedom" twenty-four times, he merely channeled the currents of Southern--and national--history. This was no new "backlash," as it was often described at the time. Ever the Founding, white Americans crying freedom have responded to even the most limited federal interventions to help non-white people with massive, and often violent, resistance. Tracing one town's story and a long struggle between local racism and federal power that continues to this day, Freedom's Dominion reveals how many white Americans came view the federal government as an obstacle to their freedom--their freedom, that is, to oppress"; Provided by publisher. |
| Contents |
Introduction: George Wallace and American freedom -- Book 1: Land. Marshall Crawford's orders ; Land, liberty, and Jackson ; The killing of Hardeman Owens ; The compromise of Francis Scott Key ; Uprising -- Book 2: Citizenship. Igniting a wall of fire ; "Destroying freedom and liberty" ; The Greeley gamble and the dueling dual legislatures of 1872 ; The white line : afternoon, election day 1874 ; The fate of the scalawag : evening, election day 1874 -- Book 3: Federal power in repose. The prison mines ; White oligarchy as Jeffersonian democracy ; Lynching as an act of freedom ; A new deal for southside? ; The Bourbon from Barbour -- Book 4: Democracy. The fightin' judge ; The Albert Street club ; From Clayton to the nation ; The SCOPE of freedom ; The vote is not enough ; The Northern strategy -- Conclusion. |
| Subject |
United States -- Race relations -- History.
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Barbour County (Ala.) -- Race relations -- History.
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White supremacy movements -- United States -- History.
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White supremacy movements -- Alabama -- Barbour County -- History.
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Civil rights -- United States -- History.
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Civil rights -- Alabama -- Barbour County -- History.
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Liberty -- Political aspects -- United States.
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Liberty -- Political aspects -- Alabama -- Barbour County.
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White people -- United States -- Attitudes.
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Barbour County (Ala.) -- History.
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HISTORY / United States / State & Local / South (AL, AR, FL, GA, KY, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, VA, WV)
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Civil rights (OCoLC)fst00862627
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Liberty -- Political aspects
(OCoLC)fst00997261
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Minorities -- Civil rights
(OCoLC)fst01023098
|
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Race relations (OCoLC)fst01086509
|
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White supremacy movements (OCoLC)fst01174715
|
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Alabama -- Barbour County
(OCoLC)fst01207720
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United States (OCoLC)fst01204155
|
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White supremacy movements -- United States.
|
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White supremacy movements.
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Civil rights -- United States.
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Civil rights.
|
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Whites.
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United States -- Race relations.
|
| Genre/Form |
History (OCoLC)fst01411628
|
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Nonfiction novels.
|
| ISBN |
9781541672802 (hardcover) |
|
1541672801 (hardcover) |
|
9781541672819 (ebook) |
|
