ebooks Patriotic Envelopes of the Civil War: The Iconography of Union and Confederate Covers (Conflicting Worlds: New Dimensions of the American Civil War) by Steven R. Boyd in History

Description

In the 1980s; Willis McGlascoe Carter’s handwritten memoir turned up unexpectedly in the hands of a midwestern antiques dealer. Its twenty-two pages told a fascinating story of a man born into slavery in Virginia who; at the onset of freedom; gained an education; became a teacher; started a family; and edited a newspaper. Even his life as a slave seemed exceptional: he described how his owners treated him and his family with respect; and he learned to read and write. Tucked into its back pages; the memoir included a handwritten tribute to Carter; written by his fellow teachers upon his death. Robert Heinrich and Deborah Harding’s From Slave to Statesman tells the extraordinary story of Willis M. Carter’s life. Using Carter’s brief memoir--one of the few extant narratives penned by a former slave--as a starting point; Heinrich and Harding fill in the abundant gaps in his life; providing unique insight into many of the most important events and transformations in this period of southern history.Carter was born a slave in 1852. Upon gaining freedom after the Civil War; Carter; like many former slaves; traveled in search of employment and education. He journeyed as far as Rhode Island and then moved to Washington; DC; where he attended night school before entering and graduating from Wayland Seminary. He continued on to Staunton; Virginia; where he became a teacher and principal in the city’s African American schools; the editor of the Staunton Tribune; a leader in community and state civil rights organizations; and an activist in the Republican Party. Carter served as an alternate delegate to the 1896 Republican National Convention; and later he helped lead the battle against Virginia’s new state constitution; which white supremacists sought to use as a means to disenfranchise blacks. As part of that campaign; Carter traveled to Richmond to address delegates at the constitutional convention; serving as chairman of a committee that advocated voting rights and equal public education for African Americans. Although Carter did not live to see Virginia adopt its new Jim Crow constitution; he died knowing that he had done all in his power to stop it. From Slave to Statesman fittingly resurrects Carter’s all-but-forgotten story; adding immeasurably to our understanding of the journey that he and men like him took out of slavery into a world of incredible promise and powerful disappointment.