In a message dated 3/1/07 11:18:20 AM, [log in to unmask] writes:


> Second, the point about forgiveness among African-Americans should be seen 
> for what it is:  the direct expression of Christian piety.  The erection of 
> myriad black-run churches in the aftermath of Emancipation helps demonstrate 
> the point.  African-Americans had become thoroughly Christian by the mid-19th 
> century.  Blacks were of course aware of the bitter fruits of bondage for 
> themselves but they, especially in Virginia where half the Civil War battles 
> were fought, saw the bitter fruit harvested by white Virginians, too.  Moses and 
> the Children of Israel did not revel in the death of all the firstborn of 
> Egypt nor did they pray for the death of the second-born.  (Another way to see 
> this is that black people do not don blue uniforms and march through say 
> Atlanta or Richmond every year, saying we kicked your butts in the 1860s and you 
> should never forget it.  Think Orangemen marched through the north of 
> Ireland!!  Instead, there were and still are many Emancipation Day celebrations.)
> 

Dear Harold:

This is an interesting point that you made about Christian piety and the lack 
of revenge expressed by the new freedmen in the South toward their former 
white owners and society.   I do believe you are correct in this regard.   I had 
a conversation regarding the Civil War with a white acquaintance in MD who was 
in her late 50s about a decade ago remarked that thank goodness black people 
were Christian or there would have been a bloody debacle in the postwar years 
in the South.   I think this is one important factor.   Another one that 
people overlook is that even in the midst of slavery black people had embraced the 
idea of being American even in its' most rudimentary form, of going out and 
seeking one's fortune for the more adventuresome freedmen.   Witness the 
migration to the cities of the South and the North, the westward migration into 
Kansas and the rest of the West, the establishment of their own businesses and 
farms for those who had the economic resources, etc.   Of course the majority 
still stayed tied to the farms and plantations they had lived on during slavery 
times out of fear and the instability of the early reconstruction era.   
Remember there were roving gangs of nightriders, famine, disease and dislocation in 
the immediate years after the war in the South.   Many freedmen opted to stay 
put out of survival mode than risk migration on the road.   Regardless of the 
choice they made, the new freedmen chose to look forward rather than look back 
and attempt to join American society even though that society (North and 
South) was reluctant at best to accept them.

Anita L. Henderson


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