Freedom's Journey

February 15, 2004
Aside from providing the kind of authoritative insight that primary sources always afford, this collection of African American perspectives on the Civil War by people who experienced it shows yet again the breadth and depth of African American letters of the time and of the struggle against racism--not just slavery--that African Americans then waged. The South considered slavery a cornerstone of the Confederacy, and far too many in the North felt that trusting a colored man with a weapon would lead to the unthinkable equality of races. Although much has been and continues to be written about the war, and about the participation of--to use the contemporary term--" colored" troops, not many collections of material by those troops are readily available, and " Free"dom's Journey probably fills a gap in most general collections. An excellent compilation, not least because its contents directly refute any notion that the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2004, American Library Association.)