The Abolitionist Legacy

by James M. McPherson

Building on arguments presented in The Struggle for Equality , James McPherson shows that many abolitionists did not retreat from Reconstruction, as historical accounts frequently lead us to believe, but instead vigorously continued the battle for black rights long after the Civil War. Tracing the activities of nearly 300 abolitionists and their descendants, he reveals that some played a crucial role in the establishment of schools and colleges for southern blacks, while others formed the vanguard of liberals who founded the NAACP in 1910. The author's examination of the complex and unhappy fate of Reconstruction clarifies the uneasy partnership of northern and southern white liberals after 1870, the tensions between black activists and white neo-abolitionists, the evolution of resistance to racist ideologies, and the origins of the NAACP.

Genres: History

456 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1976

About the author

James M. McPherson, Ph.D. (Johns Hopkins University, 1963; B.A., Gustavus Adolphus College (St. Peter, Minnesota), 1958) is an American Civil War historian, and the George Henry Davis '86 Professor Emeritus of United States History at Princeton University. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Battle Cry of Freedom, his most famous book. He was the president of the American Historical Association in 2003, and is a member of the editorial board of Encyclopædia Britannica.

Reviews

[Bob Gustafson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very thorough and very boring listing of the positions that pre-war abolitionists took from 1875 onward.