Race and Reunion

In the face of Lost Cause-ism, Black Americans “and their white allies sustained a determined, if divided, struggle to themselves avoid the wasteland of lost causes” (304). Five schools of Black thought emerged in the 30 years after the Civil War. One view emphasized the grim history of enslavement. Another, under Booker T. Washington’s influence, was “celebratory-accommodationist” (300) and focused on racial progress. A third perspective was forward-looking and combined Pan-Africanism, Ethiopianism, and millennialism. This school viewed slavery as a phase of broader historical development. Others were patriotic in outlook, emphasizing the important role that Black soldiers played in the Civil War and the historical significance of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments. Proponents of this patriotic view centered emancipation in Civil War memory. Finally, others viewed the war as a disastrous affair that was part of the Union’s “unfinished passage through a catastrophic transformation from an old order to a new one” (300). These schools of Black memory were not necessarily in opposition to one another; rather, they frequently intersected.

Throughout the Union, Black communities commemorated emancipation through marches and memorial rituals. Yet these events were not without controversy. Black Americans in Washington DC were conflicted over whether to hold a celebration on the anniversary of the city’s abolition of slavery at a time when white supremacy still ran rampant.