Founding the New Free Black Community

Millions of freed Black Americans built their own communities across the South post-Civil War. They worked to establish a life of freedom and prosperity for themselves and future generations. Schooling, church, and family were important pillars of community-building. They meant to enjoy their freedom to live with family, unite in marriage, raise children, worship in the open, and educate the next generation.

Read More

The Lost Promise of Reconstruction

Eric Foner draws parallels between our tense political climate and the end of the Reconstruction Age, overviewing the backward steps our country has taken as we move further from the promises of Reconstruction.

Read More

How Does a City Choose to Remember its Past?

Many Milwaukeeans are familiar with the 1854 abolitionist rescue of Joshua Glover, an African American who escaped slavery and found sanctuary in Wisconsin. Far fewer know about the horrific racial lynching of George Marshall Clark, a free black man, that happened only seven years later in Milwaukee. What was their story, and how have we remembered these two men?

Read More