Description:
"Paul Ortiz's lyrical and closely argued study introduces us to unknown generations of freedom fighters for whom organizing democratically became in every sense a way of life. Ortiz changes the very ways we think of Southern history as he shows in marvelous detail how Black Floridians came together to defend themselves in the face of terror, to bury their dead, to challenge Jim Crow, to vote, and to dream."--David R. Roediger, author of "Colored White: Transcending the Racial Past"
""Emancipation Betrayed" is a remarkable piece of work, a tightly argued, meticulously researched examination of the first statewide movement by African Americans for civil rights, a movement which since has been effectively erased from our collective memory. The book poses a profound challenge to our understanding of the limits and possibilities of African American resistance in the early twentieth century. This analysis of how a politically and economically marginalized community nurtures the capacity for struggle speaks as much to our time as to 1919."--Charles Payne, author of "I've Got the Light of Freedom"
Review Quotes: "Historians rarely claim that a movement began at a specific point, because they know there are always antecedents. Ortiz understands that the national Civil Rights Movement of the 1940s and 1950s had its origins in local movements, such as the ones he traces in Florida from the 1860s through 1920. Beginning with the Civil War and its aftermath, Ortiz argues that African Americans, from the start of their freedom, demanded and used their civil rights. They did not acquiesce to segregation laws; rather, they fought the laws at every opportunity. It was by surviving segregation that blacks gained their strength, developed their leadership, and created the organizations that coalesced in a voter registration drive in 1919 for the 1920 election. Despite physical violence, blacks voted in significant numbers. This is a compelling tale, one that helps to adjust the view that blacks were powerless in the 50 years after Reconstruction ended. . . . Very useful for graduate students and researchers. Recommended. "-- "CHOICE"