Show Thyself a Man, livre ebook

Georgia Historical Records Advisory Council award for Excellence in Research in Using the Holdings of Archives

The history of Black militias in Georgia after the Civil War and their importance in defining citizenship

In Show Thyself a Man, Gregory Mixon explores the ways in which African Americans in postbellum Georgia used militia service after the Civil War to define freedom and citizenship. Independent militias empowered them to get involved in politics, secure their own financial independence, and mobilize for self-defense.

As white and Black people competed for state sponsorship of their militia companies, African Americans sought to establish their roles as citizens of their country and their state. They proved their efficiency as militiamen and publicly commemorated black freedom and progress with celebrations such as Emancipation Day and the anniversaries of the Civil War Amendments.

White Georgians, however, used the militia as a different symbol of freedom—to ensure not only the postwar white right to rule but to assert states’ rights. This social, political, and military history examines how Black militias were integral to the process of liberation, Reconstruction, and nation-building that defined the latter half of the nineteenth century South.

List of Illustrations and Tables

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1. The Search for Freedom: Black Militiamen in Nineteenth-Century North America

Chapter 2. “We Called It ‘The Band of Brothers’”: Black Independent Militia Formation and the Johnson County Insurrection of 1875

Chapter 3. Creating the Georgia Militia: Blacks and the Road to State Militia Companies, 1865–1880

Chapter 4. “Any Person Capable of Doing Military Duty”: The Georgia Volunteers, 1878–1890s

Chapter 5. “Be Thou Strong Therefore and Show Thyself a Man”: Georgia Volunteers, Colored, 1889–1895

Chapter 6. The Road to Disbandment, 1896–1899

Chapter 7. The New Era, 1899–1905

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index