***
“No Protection in Georgia: Black Political Participation in Reconstruction Era Georgia”
Dr. Alicia Jackson, Covenant College
Thursday, March 10, 2022
Lupton 105 6:00
–
–
In her talk, Dr. Jackson will explore the choice made by many formerly enslaved people in Georgia to fully realize their freedom, specifically through political activity. Challenging the prevalent narrative that Black leaders simply acquiesced to the wishes and goals of their former masters, Dr. Jackson will demonstrate that many Black political and religious leaders worked subtly but, nevertheless, tirelessly against oppressive conditions in Georgia that ultimately would result in a Black exodus from the state. Dr. Jackson’s talk rises from content in her new book, The Recovered Life of Isaac Anderson, which reconstructs the lost history of a man born enslaved who became a religious and community leader in the South. Jackson traces strategies used by Black southerners to challenge growing restrictions of their rights during the Reconstruction Era through the early twentieth century. Anderson’s story and those of the countless other Black leaders “lost” to history represents Black resistance as Jim Crow legislation was becoming synonymous with the region.
Dr. Alicia Jackson is an Associate Professor of History at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia. She currently leads a student-based research project known as the District Hill Cemetery Project. With most of the grave markers are gone, the community-based project focuses on recovering the lost history and stories of a vibrant Black community located in Chickamauga, Georgia. Among her recent publications include “Having Our Own: The Colored Methodist Episcopal Church and the Struggle for Black Autonomy in Education,” which was published in Southern Religions, Southern Cultures: Essays Honoring Charles Reagan Wilson by University Press of Mississippi. She was awarded a Louisville Project Grant for Researchers in 2016 for her book The Recovered Life of Isaac Anderson (November 2021) published by University Press of Mississippi.
This presentation is sponsored by The Adolph S. Ochs Professor of Government, Africana Studies, the History Department, and the Office of Multicultural Affairs.