Festivals of Freedom: Memory and Meaning in African American Emancipation Celebrations, 1808-1915.

Festivals of Freedom: Memory and Meaning in African American Emancipation Celebrations, 1805-1915. By Mitch Kachun. (Amherst and Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, c. 2003. Pp. xii, 339. $39.95, ISBN 1-55849-407-3.)

With Festivals of Freedom, Mitch Kachun makes a significant contribution to both African American history and the study of historical memory in the United States. Kachun explores the development of public commemorative traditions in black communities. As the first book-length historical study to encompass the full breadth of nineteenth-century African American emancipation celebrations, Festivals of Freedom provides a valuable and compelling analysis of both the multilayered significance of freedom celebrations to nineteenth-century black Americans and the various reasons for such ceremonies' dissolution in the early twentieth century, particularly in large urban areas in the North and West.

Kachun is to be commended for the geographical and chronological stretch of Festivals of Freedom. While existing studies of African American historical memory have emphasized either the antebellum or postbellum period, Kachun instead chose to bridge the two eras. This enables him to explore continuities between the commemorative traditions established by free blacks in the North prior to the Civil War and the development of freedom celebrations after emancipation. Beginning with an analysis of the earliest African American freedom celebrations in the eighteenth century, Kachun moves forward to chart the emergence in free black communities in the Northeast of commemorations of the abolition of the slave trade in 1808 and New York emancipation in 1827. He then examines commemoration of West Indian emancipation in free black northern communities in the 1840s and 1850s and the development of new--and more diverse--Freedom Day traditions in both the North and the South following the end of the Civil War. The second half of Festivals of Freedom examines the widespread efforts of African Americans to institutionalize historical traditions in the late nineteenth century, ranging from the continuation of freedom celebrations to the creation of historical societies and numerous monument-building initiatives. Kachun also discusses the many obstacles facing such efforts, including white hostility, financial constraints, and various conflicts among African Americans over when and how--or even whether--to remember slavery and commemorate freedom. His carefully nuanced conclusion suggests ways in which shifting political and cultural contexts contributed to the weakening of African American commemorative traditions in much of the country in the early 1900s.

As Kachun clarifies in his introduction, his focus is on a "relatively small and diffuse fellowship" of black spokespersons, including educators, ministers, and journalists, who were often the key organizers of commemorative events in black communities (p. 4). Kachun traces the efforts of these black leaders to create commemorative traditions that would unite African Americans into a community bound by a common past, establish the terms of African American identity for both black and white audiences, and make the case for an expansive vision of American freedom. Journalists were particularly active in the arena of historical memory, and Kachun has successfully mined black newspapers and journals for information, not only about the content of commemorations and other historical endeavors but also about the many conflicts that emerged as African Americans struggled with one another over the meaning of the past and the best direction for the future.

Even as Festivals of Freedom provides a broad portrait of nineteenth-century African American emancipation celebrations, Kachun's contribution should encourage scholars--particularly southern historians--to investigate further the meaning of public ceremonies for nineteenth-century African American political culture. While a clear strength of Kachun's work is that he links postbellum ceremonies in the South to antebellum precedents in the North, one consequence of the book's argument and structure is that southern ceremonies, and especially the role of freedpeople and freeborn black southerners, receive significantly less attention than their northern and western counterparts--with the notable exception of an in-depth chapter on Washington, D.C. As scholars continue their efforts to understand the political culture of African Americans in the nineteenth-century South, the role of public ceremonies, including commemorations, will be an important field of exploration. Finally, Kachun's portrait of the particular course of freedom celebrations in Washington, D.C., and the resilience of local traditions suggests the rich potential for examining commemorations in the context of single communities, including rural areas and small towns as well as urban centers. As scholars explore the history of African American commemorations along these and other lines, they will be able to build upon the strong foundation provided by Festivals of Freedom.

University of Georgia 

KATHLEEN CLARK