Book Review

Mary Niall Mitchell. Raising Freedom’s Child: Black Children and Visions of theFuture after Slavery. New York: New York University Press, 2008. 336pp. Cloth $49.00.

The end of the Civil War through Reconstruction brought change for allAmericans, especially white Southerners who were dependent on slavelabor. This change was particularly evident in the ways in which peoplevoiced opinions on the impending role and care of newly freed African-American children. In Raising Freedom’s Child, Mary Niall Mitchellcarefully documents how many Americans, from former slaveholders toabolitionists, responded to the legal emancipation of thousands of blackchildren in the mid-nineteenth century. An equally significant,underlying issue throughout Mitchell’s book is African-Americans’(in)ability to control their own destiny once emancipated, given thelegacy of racial inequality and social controls that had existed forgenerations.

Through an exploration of the lives of children, Mitchell examinesthe political, social, and economic impact of events surrounding theending of legalized slavery in the United States and the subsequentresponses of Northerners and Southerners. The relationship of the(white) paternal figure and the (black) dependent child is examinedthrough various sources including children’s writing, visual images, andlegal documents. In the book’s opening and closing chapters, forexample, the rarely heard voices of Afro-Creoles offer anotherperspective for the historical studies of race, class, and power.Children’s viewpoints emerge in letters written for class assignmentsat the Catholic Institution, a school for free black orphans in NewOrleans. Established by a wealthy ‘‘free woman of color’’ before the CivilWar, the school was ‘‘the cornerstone of Afro-Creoles’ political work’’(p. 18). The school’s well-educated, free black teachers guided students,who crafted letters reflecting a unique perspective on slavery, freedom,and life beyond the Gulf Coast.

The broader dynamics of schooling are reflected in a description ofNew Orleans’ role in nineteenth and twentieth century desegregation,as some of its city schools were the first in the South to open to allchildren regardless of ‘‘race, color, or previous condition’’ between 1871and 1877 (p. 192). Efforts of Louisiana’s free men of color, supported bysome former slaves, challenged the ‘‘separate but equal’’ rule at least tenyears before the Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) decision. Although dismissed bysome historians as ‘‘unrepresentative’’ of the plight of southern blacks,

History of Education Quarterly Vol. 49 No. 3 August 2009 Copyright r 2009 by the History of Education Society

subsequent schooling disputes occurred throughout the South. Mitchellnotes that ‘‘in political discourse, the education of the black child becamean extended metaphor for the future of the South, a metaphor thatcontained competing claims for civil rights, black equality, and whitesupremacy’’ (p. 194). The discovery of the letters containing thesedisclosures, as well as Mitchell’s well-articulated description of relatedpolitical and social events at the time of their creation, contributes to abroader historical understanding of the post Reconstruction AfricanAmerican educational experience.

However, in chapter two, Mitchell is challenged to achieve similarclarity with explanations of posed photographs of light and darkcomplexioned black children who were often ‘‘the children of theirmasters’’ (p. 54). In detailed descriptions of the pictures andinterpretations of how white Americans viewed the racial classificationof ‘‘freedom’s children,’’ she acknowledges that ‘‘reading thesephotographs, finding our way into the place and time that gave themmeaning, is quite difficult’’ (p. 9). Yet, her effort to interpret theimages at times blurs, rather than explains, the often violent andnonconsensual acts that caused such children to be born, and theunspoken codes of power and privilege that surrounded them. Instating that ‘‘white-looking children were the embodiment of racialtransgression, living proof of the ruling passion of the south’’ (p. 62), shegives the reader ample detail to support whites’ actions and fears, butlittle insight into their moral thinking and the end result of such behaviorto enslaved black women. Likewise, the chapter entitled ‘‘CivilizingMissions’’ strikes a dissonant chord in its description of ‘‘reformers andmissionaries’’ who attempted to assimilate freed black children into anAnglo-Saxon society. The interpretation of ‘‘contrast photographs’’ andliterature that depict the children’s physical transformation from ragged,malnourished slaves to well dressed and groomed freed children couldbe used to reinforce opinions of the era that only white ‘‘reformers andrescuers’’ could save blacks from lives of poverty and despair. Perhapsgreater examination of these findings can provide new nineteenthcentury benchmarks in America’s chronology of race relations or canenlighten current dialogues on equity, access, and power in ourmulticultural society.

One of the book’s strengths is its discussion of the black child’scrucial role in the South’s labor system during and after Reconstruction.Mitchell demonstrates careful historical research and presentation ofmultiple perspectives to argue her points. She documents an‘‘apprenticeship system’’ that emerged on former southern plantationsto meet white planters’ needs and supports arguments that the nation’seconomic reliance on unpaid black youth created a web of ‘‘emotional,economic and bureaucratic demands’’ that supported their continued

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exploitation (p. 149). Many freed black families, Mitchell notes, wereoften entangled in legal custody disputes with former slaveholders forguardianship of their own children, in spite of appeals and actions byrelatives and extended kin to keep families intact. This discussion shedsnew light on reasons why many newly freed blacks could not establish orsolidify their family units following emancipation. Coupled with anin-depth study of chapter notes and sources, this material can extendresearch and dialogue on the intersection of governmental andindividual roles in family health and well-being issues.

Raising Freedom’s Child provides new insights on how differentgroups imagined their lives after emancipation in a changing nation. Byplacing the child at the center of the research, Mitchell provides a keyhistorical link, bridging past-and-present roles of youth in the strugglefor racial and social equality. When coupled with more historical workthat documents the agency, as well as the oppression of nineteenthcentury African Americans, this book can extend our thinking about asignificant period in US history and race relations.

PATRICE PRESTON-GRIMESUNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA

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