July 16, 1867

DE SOTO, Mississippi

African-Americans, Slavery, Urban-Life/Boosterism

At the conclusion of the Civil War in 1865, two million slaves suddenly found themselves emancipated from the system of bondage that they had known their entire lives. The United States was in a unique situation in which it was not quite sure how to handle the differences between its new society with all freed African Americans, and its old slaveholding one. In order to help the refugees of the Civil...