Jenkins, Wilbert L. Seizing the New Day: African Americans in Post-Civil War Charleston. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998. The end of the Civil War may have ended the institution of slavery, but this emancipation did not necessarily mean that African Americans in post-Civil War Charleston, South Carolina, experienced an unrivalled freedom. Actually, Wilbert Jenkins shows that the black community’s experience was far from certain in the aftermath of the Civil War. In Seizing the New …showed first 75 words of 513 total…

…showed last 75 words of 513 total…for a glimpse into the struggles of one group of African American shortly after the Civil War. Though the book is not the most gracefully written, it does clearly and persuasively make its case. At least in Charleston, South Carolina, African Americans assumed an active role in attempting to create a new social order following the Civil War. Unfortunately, as Jenkins illustrates, much of this hard work seemingly fails along with the policies of Reconstruction.