Leslie Schwalm, “Emancipation’s Diaspora: Race and Reconstruction in the Upper Midwest” (University of North Carolina Press, 2009)

New Books in African American Studies · Jul 31, 2009 · 1h 1m

You’ve heard of “Reconstruction,” that is, the reform of the South after the Civil War. But have you heard of “Northern Reconstruction?” Probably not. I hadn’t either until I read Leslie Schwalm’s superb new book Emancipation’s Diaspora: Race and Reconstruction in the Upper Midwest (University of North Carolina Press, 2009). We tend to think of the Civil War as a Northern fight against Southern slavery. It was that to some extent. But, in our rush to congratulate ourselves on liberating those in Southern bondage, we tend to overlook the fact that blacks living in the North were treated none…