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Dissertation Information for Carey H Latimore IV

NAME:
- Carey H Latimore IV

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- History

SCHOOL:
- Emory University (USA) (2005)

ADVISORS:
- James L Roark

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- Leslie M Harris
- Leroy Davis Jr

MPACT Status: Fully Complete

Title: Always a minority: Richmond area free blacks in the Civil War era

Abstract: This dissertation, "Always a Minority? Richmond Free Blacks in the Civil War Era" examines the impact and meaning of the Civil War for free blacks in and around Richmond, Virginia. It does so by examining a variety of sources including public, court, church, military, and government documents that encompass social, economic, and military history. In particular, my study of the Richmond area explores the free black community's history from 1850 to 1870, and focuses on both the city of Richmond and the surrounding county of Henrico.

By probing this time period and these places, this study adds significantly to the historiographical debates over the differences in experience between rural and urban free blacks. At the same time, this thesis also highlights the experience of those free blacks who lived in the Richmond suburbs and whose world was, therefore, neither purely urban nor rural. This study also evaluates class in the context of place. I argue that only in Richmond City and its suburbs did an elite class of free blacks exist, some of whom identified themselves as separate and distinct from other free blacks and slaves. I also contend that this class benefited from a form of benevolent despotism, privileges extended by prominent whites to blacks who they felt deserved some rights that the law did not grant. The evidence shows that, during the late antebellum period and continuing through the Civil War, these privileges were withdrawn, forcing elite free blacks to experience the more difficult conditions the free black majority had long endured, a status more akin to slavery.

The end of the Civil War signaled the end of all forms of benevolent despotism, and, although some free blacks and a few paternalistic whites tried to continue with this arrangement, this proved impossible in postwar Richmond. Immediately after the Civil War differences in prewar status left free blacks divided. Initially, some wanted to unite around their separate status both as skilled workers and as antebellum free blacks. The majority, however, recognized the benefits of presenting a more unified black community to non-blacks and foresaw the problems of having separate black communities in times of social difficulty.

As Congressional Reconstruction took hold in Virginia, these distinctions eroded; black Richmonders saw the necessary black unity. Soon, however, other divisions occurred that also had their genesis in prewar status. The free blacks--who had been skilled workers and, therefore, relatively prosperous during the antebellum period--adopted a more moderate ideology, only seeking equal political rights from the United States government. In contrast, radicals--a coalition of poorer skilled workers, factory workers, and common laborers, comprised by both free blacks and freed persons--continued to express a distrust of white Southerners. Unhappy with the prospects of only garnering equality over a period of time, frustrated with white racism and poor job prospects, black radicals demanded more than merely equal rights; they also demanded land confiscation of former Confederates, legislated disfranchisement of former Confederates, and integrated public schools. The end of Reconstruction in Virginia in 1870, however, curtailed the political aspirations of both groups, forcing black Richmonders to turn even more inward and away from these political activities. Reconstruction's end meant that antebellum free blacks, just as they were before the Civil War, were still free but remained unequal.

MPACT Scores for Carey H Latimore IV

A = 0
C = 0
A+C = 0
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2008-02-02 21:56:28

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Students under Carey H Latimore IV

ADVISEES:
- None

COMMITTEESHIPS:
- None