They Left Great Marks on Me: African American Testimonies of Racial Violence from Emancipation to World War I

Well After Slavery Was Abolished, Its Legacy Of Violence Left Deep Wounds On African Americans' Bodies, Minds, And Lives. For Many Victims And Witnesses Of The Assaults, Rapes, Murders, Nightrides, Lynchings, And Other Bloody Acts That Followed, The Suffering This Violence Engendered Was At Once Too Painful To Put Into Words Yet Too Horrible To Suppress. Despite The Trauma It Could Incur, Many African Americans Opted To Publicize Their Experiences By Testifying About The Violence They Endured And Witnessed. In This Evocative And Deeply Moving History, Kidada Williams Examines African Americans' Testimonies About Racial Violence. By Using Both Oral And Print Culture To Testify About Violence, Victims And Witnesses Hoped They Would Be Able To Graphically Disseminate Enough Knowledge About Its Occurrence That Federal Officials And The American People Would Be Inspired Bear Witness To Thier Suffering And Support Their Demands For Justice. In The Process Of Testifying, These People Created A Vernacular History Of The Violence They Endured And Witnessed, As Well As The Identities That Grew From The Experience Of Violence. This History Fostered An Oppositional Consciousness To Racial Violence That Inspired African Americans To Form And Support Campaigns To End Violence. The Resulting Crusades Against Racial Violence Became One Of The Political Training Grounds For The Civil Rights Movement. -- Book Cover. The Special Object(s) Of Hatred And Persecution : The Terror Of Emancipation -- A Long Series Of Oppression, Injustice, And Violence : The Purgatory Of Sectional Reconciliation -- Lynched, Burned Alive, Jim-crowed In My Country : Shaping Responses To The Descent To Hell -- If You Can, The Colored Needs Help : Reaching Out From Local Communities -- It Is Not For Us To Run Away From Violence : Fueling The Naacp's Antilynching -- Crusade -- Epilogue : Closer To The Promised Land. Kidada E. Williams. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.