A Nation under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration
A Nation under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration
复制标题
我们脚下的国家：南方农村从奴隶制到大迁徙的黑人政治斗争
DOI：
10.1080/03612759.2005.10526473
复制
发表时间：
2005
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Martin J. Hardeman
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Martin J. Hardeman
史蒂文·哈恩，宾夕法尼亚大学历史学教授罗伊和珍妮特·P·尼科尔斯，写了一本获奖的书。故事发生在南方农村，涵盖了从19世纪50年代到20世纪20年代初的几年，并探讨了工作，亲属关系和非裔美国人政治意识不断变化的性质的交叉点。哈恩基本上将政治定义为“可能”。因此，被奴役者的政治通常是地方性的和个人主义的。奴隶的数量取决于奴隶主的性格、奴隶社会的规模和稳定性、工作的性质以及外界信息的可获得性。这场斗争主要是关于劳动条件和个人自主权的持续谈判。然而，总是有一些意识的世界以外的领域和家庭。内战扩大了这种意识，创造了新的可能性。这场冲突意味着那些留在家里的奴隶在与主人讨价还价时发现了不习惯的筹码。对于逃往北方的40多万人来说，这意味着获得了一种新的自我意识。对于20多万在联邦陆军或海军服役的人来说，这意味着积极参与他们自己的解放。在战争结束时，这意味着整个南方的自由人和被自由人能够在地方大会上会面，评估他们的目标和自由的意义。然而，他们的目标仍然是个人和社区自治。当重建时期的平等承诺收缩时，他们保持不变。他们保持不变，因为新的选择，从移民和建立全黑人社区到与白色保守派或持不同政见者的双胞胎联盟，出现了。所有人都受到审判。没有任何东西被拒绝，所有东西都是用同一个标准来衡量的。它是否促进了非裔美国人的目标？哈恩断言，在这种顽强的坚持之下，存在着一个由亲属团体和地方组织组成的基层网络，它为每一场新运动提供了结构、形状和与过去的连续性。
Steven Hahn, Roy and Jeanette P. Nichols Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania, has written an award-winning book. Set in the rural South, it covers the years from the 1850s to the early 1920s and explores intersections of work, kinship, and the changing nature of African American political consciousness. Hahn essentially defines politics as the “possible.” Politics among the enslaved, therefore, were generally local and individualistic. They were determined by the character of the master, the size and stability of the slave community, the nature of work, and the availability of outside information. The struggle was primarily a continuing negotiation over labor conditions and personal autonomy. Yet, there was always some awareness of the world beyond the fields and the family. The Civil War expanded that awareness and created new possibilities. The conflict meant that those slaves who remained at home discovered unaccustomed leverage in bargaining with their owners. For the more than four hundred thousand who fled to the North, it meant the acquisition of a new sense of self. For the more than two hundred thousand who served in the Union army or navy, it meant actively participating in their own liberation. At the war’s end, it meant that freemen and freedmen throughout the South were able to meet in local conventions to assess their goals and the meanings of freedom.Their goals, however, stayed the samepersonal and communal autonomy. They stayed the same when Reconstruction’s promise of equality contracted. They stayed the same as new options, ranging from emigration and the creation of all-black communities to biracial alliances with white conservatives or dissidents, appeared. All were tried. Nothing was rejected and all were measured by the same yardstick. Did it advance the goals of the African American people? Beneath this dogged persistence, Hahn asserts, there lay a grassroots network of kin groups and local organizations that gave structure, shape, and continuity with the past to each new movement.