Seizing the New Day

For former slaves in Charleston, South Carolina, life was a constant struggle adjusting to freedom while battling whites' attempts to regain control. Using autobiographies, slave narratives, Freedmen's Bureau letters and papers, and other primary documents, Wilbert L. Jenkins attempts to understand how the freedmen saw themselves in the new order and to shed light on their hopes and aspirations. He emphasizes, not the defeat of these aspirations, but rather the victories the freedmen won against white resistance.