In Plain Sight: African Americans at Andersonville National Historic Site (A Special History Study)
McCleary A, Kutzler E, Brock J, Adams K, Bastien R, Rivers L. 2021. In Plain Sight: African Americans at Andersonville National Historic Site (A Special History Study)
This study is organized chronologically from the mid-19th century through the 21st century. Chapter one situates Andersonville and southwest Georgia within the cotton boom and the collapse of slavery. By 1865, Andersonville was a grim monument to a government and an army built on the labor, knowledge, and skills of enslaved people. And yet, surprisingly, Andersonville quickly emerged from the Civil War as a refuge for men, women, and children fleeing slavery in southwest Georgia. As chapter two illustrates, the American Missionary Association (AMA) took advantage of this opportunity. In 1866, the AMA established a freedmen’s school in the ruins of the Confederate Hospital located south of Andersonville and just east of the Southwestern Railroad. As chapter three demonstrates, Andersonville National Cemetery served as a promising place to work, raise a family, and exercise new political rights. Chapter four continues a focus on African American pilgrimages to Andersonville, even as these were decreasing in numbers and changing in form. As later chapters show, Black landowners bordered the site, making up its nearest neighbors. After World War II, the U.S. Army segregated burials in the National Cemetery, capitulating to southern custom. The post-war years, however, saw the birth of the modern civil rights movement, which came to Sumter County and shaped the lives of African Americans in Americus and Andersonville. The stories of African American experiences, life, and history—enslaved, freed, citizens—in the town of Andersonville, Camp Sumter, Andersonville National Cemetery, and the Prison Park documented in the preceding chapters were either unknown, untold, or ignored at the Andersonville National Historic Site until the 21st century. Chapter seven seeks to understand why Andersonville’s Black history went largely untold at Andersonville National Historic Site for almost 150 years.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- McCleary, Ann; Kutzler, Evan; Brock, Julia; Adams, Keri; Bastien, Ronald; Rivers, Larry
- Date of Issue
- 2021-02-12
- Units
- ANDE
- Keywords
- African American, ANDE, Andersonville, Civil Rights, Civil War, Dedication Day, National Cemetery, Prisoner of War, Reconstruction, Special History Study, Sumter School