From a groundbreaking scholar, a heart-wrenching reexamination of
the struggle for survival in the Reconstruction-era South, and what
it cost.
The
story of Reconstruction is often told from the perspective of the
politicians, generals, and journalists whose accounts claim an
outsized place in collective memory. But this pivotal era looked very
different to African Americans in the South transitioning from
bondage to freedom after 1865. They were besieged by a campaign of
white supremacist violence that persisted through the 1880s and
beyond. For too long, their lived experiences have been sidelined,
impoverishing our understanding of the obstacles post-Civil War Black
families faced, their inspiring determination to survive, and the
physical and emotional scars they bore because of it.
In
I Saw Death Coming, Kidada E. Williams offers a breakthrough
account of the much-debated Reconstruction period, transporting
readers into the daily existence of formerly enslaved people building
hope-filled new lives. Drawing on overlooked sources and bold new
readings of the archives, Williams offers a revelatory and, in some
cases, minute-by-minute record of nighttime raids and Ku Klux Klan
strikes. And she deploys cutting-edge scholarship on trauma to
consider how the effects of these attacks would linger for
decades--indeed, generations--to come.
For
readers of Carol Anderson, Tiya Miles, and Clint Smith, I Saw
Death Coming is an indelible and essential book that speaks to
some of the most pressing questions of our times.