Lifting the chains: the Black freedom struggle since Reconstruction

"It was 1863. Abraham Galloway--son of a white father and an enslaved mother--stood next to the Army recruiter, holding a gun to the soldier's head. He had escaped slavery in the hold--of a ship four years earlier, fleeing to Canada, then became a master spy for the Union Army. Now, in the days after Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, Galloway had returned to North Carolina, becoming the leader of more than 4,000 escaped slaves who had joined him in New Bern, North Carolina. We will join the Union Army, Galloway told the recruiter, but only on our terms. Galloway then laid down his demands: the right to vote; the right to serve on juries; the right to run for elected office; equal pay for Black and white soldiers; schools for their children; jobs for women; and care for their families. In retrospect, the demands seem revolutionary. But not so, given the roles that Blacks were playing in the war. Hence, the recruiter said yes. Within days, 10,000 Blacks had joined Galloway to enlist in the Union Army. Those soldiers--along with nearly 200,000 other Blacks who enlisted--proved pivotal to destroying the system of plantation slavery. Soon, they would inaugurate the quest to create a truly democratic America"--