Image
This talk is designed to explore the meaning of freedom and how it was achieved during and following the Civil War in South Carolina. Emancipation was achieved at different places and at different rates during and after the Civil War. Furthermore, while many know about the Emancipation Proclamation, which conferred legal freedom on former slaves, what it granted was only theoretical liberty. The initiatives taken by Black people themselves and what they created made freedom real and meaningful. These efforts at creating new institutions, ways of working, seeking education, and determining status will all be explored in examining the contours of black freedom in South Carolina during this most fraught and unprecedented time.
About the Speaker:
Bernard E. Powers Jr. earned a Ph. D. in American history at Northwestern University. He is professor emeritus of history at the College of Charleston and the College’s founding director of the Center for the Study of Slavery in Charleston. His "Black Charlestonians: A Social History 1822-1885," was designated an “Outstanding Academic Book” by Choice Magazine. Powers is co-author of We Are Charleston: Tragedy and Triumph at Mother Emanuel, which contextualizes the city’s racially motivated murders of 2015. Most recently, he edited "101 African Americans Who Shaped South Carolina" (USC Press, 2020). Powers have appeared in African-American-oriented documentary films, including the PBS production, "The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross" and "Emanuel: The Untold Story of the Victims and Survivors of the Charleston Church Shooting." He was the founding president of the Charleston Branch of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. In 2019, that organization recognized his commitment to “research, writing, and activism in the field of African American life and history” with the Carter Godwin Woodson Scholars Medallion. Powers also served on the board of Charleston’s recently opened International African American Museum.