Transcripts For CSPAN3 The Civil War Black Religious Politic

Introduce Nicole Meyers turner and her book. Nicole turner is assistant professor of religious studies at yale university. She earned her ph. D in history at the university of pennsylvania, her masters at divinity at the seminary in new york and her bachelors degree from hairford college and shes the author of this 2020 book soul liberty, postemancipation virginia published this year by the university of North Carolina press and before asking niconicole the first question i want to mention that this book appears in this conventional version of a hard copy, but also has two other versions and part of what makes her work so interesting is that it is so engaged from digital humanities and the book also exists as a conventional sort of conventional as she describes it verbatim, openaccess ebook and also as an enhanced openaccess ebook which shows off what dr. Turner was able to do with mapping and kind of Digital Technology in order to develop her Research Findings and so one of things i hope we get to talk about today is how she worked with those sources and what kind of promise she thinks digital humanities holds in this research into africanAmerican History in particular. Just to start it off, dr. Turner, tell us a little bit about tell us about this book to people who dont know anything about it are its main arguments and what does it accomplish and how do you see it contributing to the conversation. That was a lot of question. Give us your general pitch about this book and what its Central Claims are. First i want to say thank you so much for having me as part of the series and as part of a series of other scholars who will be here and also thank you for talking about my work and in the book soul liberty is the evolution of black religious politics and it is how black churches became political agents. I think there is a very common understanding of black churches as already politically engaged and my the aim of my book was to narrate that process and it wasnt also engaged in the same ways and that black churches are, in fact, historical spaces that have changed across time and were changed in the process of reconstruction and so thats what the main aim of the book is. Thank you so much. Well be bouncing back and forth, so i dont mean to catch you from two different sides. Were really delighted to read the book, and i have 9 million questions and ill ask them all at once and talk really fast. No, im kidding and i want to be patient for all of the things that i want to ask later. Im building off of what you just said i wonder if you can help us understand what you mean by soul liberty. Its not just a lovely title and its also a concept you return to over the book and it seems to speak to some of these intersections that youre so interested in in religion and politics and how theyre shaping each other and i wonder if you can get us started in what that means in your work. Sure. Thank you. So soul liberty actually comes from a quote in the Virginia Baptist State Convention minutes where members of the convention were citing Roger Williams pursuit of soul liberty in the formation of rhode island, whats interesting about the usage of that term is its not only a term that applied to the black baptists as part of the study and it applied to black episcopalians and the Apostolic Church which started in southern virginia and North Carolina, but the term soul liberty is the idea of religious freedom. This idea that black people could worship when, where and with whom they chose and it also points to this idea of equity and justice and righteousness that they were also pursuing in their religious communities and also in the broader landscape. So while it comes from a very particular baptist context, it is something that applies to the Virginia Baptist State Convention and the black episcopalians who attended the Theological School which was the first black seminary for priests in the fiscal tradition and the members of the Apostolic Church. One of the few black denominations that was started in the south. One of the only ones that were started in the south. They all are pursuing this idea of being able to worship and also these ideas of freedom, equity, injustice. Your answer captures many of the fascinating aspects of it. One that particularly struck me and you note in your own notes is that that pursuit of liberty at first glance might read as liberty to worship separate from white interference which is an important part of the story, but also a liberty that allows for quite different types of formation in the religious world, and i was interested in the ways you write about baptist and the ame church sits so centrally in the literature which makes perfect sense and yet other religious experiences that episcopalians whom you mentioned were the africanamerican members of the mec and developed later and others seem to be harder to pin down in the literature. What do you think we gain when we study people who choose as in Saint Stephens who operate in an almost completely of africanamerican space, but remain in a whitedominated denomination. As a historian, what drew you to those spaces, as well . I hear in your question a couple of things and one has to do with the definition of liberty and the differences in the denominations and their approaches, and i would say first, that the ability to see this landscape comes from doing a geographical look, right . A study that begins in a particular place in virginia and sort of not taking the lens in a particular denomination and i didnt come to it through the lens of the baptist and with the lens of virginia, with all three of those denominations and when you start to think about how each of these communities chose to pursue freedom, you know, it becomes really evident and the baptist and part of the trajectory of their struggle goes through, you know, in the beginnings where black baptists are organized already in conventions before the vote is is established by the 15th amendment and theyre already making arguments for their political participation and their skill and its something that was before the emancipation and there were black people organizing associations and so they had demonstrated the skill and the ability to participate as citizens through their own religious communities and then you find a very interesting, you know, story of st. Stephens Episcopal Church in virginia which was started by a black woman who, in consultation with the white priest from the church that her family became members of, establishes an independent black church and one of the first black Episcopal Churches for the community of petersburg and its an interesting story because people tend to associate the high Church Culture and not with roots in an enslaved free black community. Churches with black Women Leadership and in this instance, you have black people like caroline brag who helped establish the church and her grandson becomes in the readjustment movement and another thing that drew me to the virginia landscape, and george brag becomes involved and it becomes a critical agent and narrating black history, and reflects how the struggle was established in their own independent spaces and churches with associations and if its episcopalians that are navigating the landscape of engaging with former confederates as the student at the school as a participant in the readjustment movement and it opens up a way of thinking of how did black people go about forming this type of alliance. Thats one of the things that drew me to this particular case in virginia is how did they form this alliance. One of the things that becomes evidence, and theyre struggling for us and finding ways to achieve it in these various locations. Thats so much, nicole. This is so interesting. The majority, the vast majority of the book takes us into the postcivil war period and youre talking as the title suggest, the emancipation moment, but i wanted to have you talk about the transition to freedom and youre talking about an area in virginia where the vast majority of africanamericans before the civil war were enslaved and how would you describe for us and readers what that transition looked like. What were the aspect of black religious experiences during the time of slavery that informed what people did after emancipation and what were the particular challenges that people faced as slavery came to an end during the civil war and after ward and how do you understand and see the transition. I think the transition can be seen best by having a longstanding narrative by black Church Engagement and the antibe antibellum churches where they were able to worship independent churches and one of the things we start to see in the postemancipation landscape are our debates about Land Ownership and property and so theres this interesting aspect and thinking about Land Ownership as something that came through churches and that black people were trying to navigate the Legal Systems in trying to secure ownership by title and the formal ownership of churches that they had paid into help support and develop economically and didnt have the right to sort of full name ownership on the deed kind of situation. So part of that transition involves a transition to Property Ownership and part of that, in the postemancipation period had to do with gender roles. One of the things i have to highlight is how theyre being established in Church Communities and so part of what you can see or what i try to convey through telling the story is give the church back to petersburg and looking very closely at the landscape is how gender roles were actually being transformed in that moment and so one of the things i focus on in looking at the cases of unwed pregnancy which meetings handled a lot of different kinds of issues and i focus on the cases of unwed pregnancy because there is a clear transformation of how the community didnt hold both parties accountable for wanting to be pregnant out of wedlock for a brief moment in time, and they do allow for both parties to be held accountable and then they shift back to just holding the women accountable and part of perhaps as a result is women move back into this space of being only disciplined in church meetings. In this moment you start to see the rise of a ministerial figure who is male and has a particular gender status. So i think there are ways in which the leadership roles change and expand. How access to land and property is something that changes through the churches across this time and also how gender roles are being transformed on the landscape of religious institutions. And just to follow up on that question of gender roles, i feel like you make reference to the work the work on a later period of for instance, Glenda Gilmore and to some extent barkeley brown about kind of an argument that either gender roles among africanamericans particularly in churches became to understand what we now understand to be conventional and women being a part of the church and not being in leadership roles and gender respectability that that emerged later in the 1890s or so and im just wondering, do you see that what youre finding is suggesting that all of the things that people came about later came about earlier and also i think that raises that question which is interesting and repeated a lot of different places that historians suggested that the emancipation period was a period of greater experimentation around gender hierarchy among africanamericans and just coming out of fluidity and contestation because, for example, so many families and so many marriages had been interrupted by the domestic slave trade and now you have a moment of flexibility. Are you finding something really different from that here . Yeah. I think yes. I think the short answer is yes. I think when you look at the petersburg landscape you definitely see the imposition of gender roles taking place much earlier, and the question is not only one of time period ask its also a place. Its also circumstance and also the leadership model and you know one of the things i talk about in the study and acknowledge is that this is a deep look into a particular communet and we need many more studies. Are they talking to got about this particular gender roles. I wish is part it is Church Records that really revealed what was taking police on the ground is constructive. Was being transformed during that time. One of the places that we see that is in the conventions and conferences and these other organizational and networking levels and well come back to this in a little bit when we turn to mapping, but staying on the level of more your argument and i think one of the joys in reading your book and books of history that have this deep granularity is seeing it take something that on its face a lot of historians rush past because it doesnt seem that interesting. People get why congregations are interesting, but conferences and conventions and theres a lot of who is representing, and to explain why not only has meaningful and also interesting and i do think its one of the magical moments of the book to see you take this thing and i feel the impulse of, like, how do i get to the good stuff and this is the good stuff if you see it right or this networking in connection and also, though, as you say for the ways it ties back to your question about gender and about the ways that these spaces bein, not exclusively, but spaces of a male, ministerial privilege and i want to just tell people who havent yet read it and what you draw from and what you learned and why you think those spaces matter, and if youve got space, you know . What drew you to it . Did you know all along that that would be a telling part or did you know over the course of your study . Thank you so much, because i do remember people cautioning you about a couple of things and one, that there willnt be information, and theres not a lot in and when shoo produced the schedule of the convention, i was, like, wow that was constructive into something i didnt have insight absent reading the book and there was something to do and not be bored by them, and also the baptist Convention Minutes are a treasure trove of information about black, religious and political life, preserved on microfilm. Some of them have whole 30year runs of their Convention Minutes and every year you can find an annual convention and its robust and these exist for every state, almost and its a huge archive if you think about it about black, religious life that needs to be mine. As i got into them there is a lot here to see and it also came out of an investment in using the archive of black peoples lives, right. So in recognition that the archives of black religious life, in many instances can be small and mediated often through the eyes of white people. This is an archive that comes from black people about the experience and so it is really important for me to center those sources and to use every bit and i remember in graduate school, one of my instructors talking about being told that when you find something, you know, about black peoples lives you have to figure out how you can use it in the most robust way possible, and so it was really important for me to get those sources and get everything that i could from them and you cant help, but be struck by what is included in them. I mean, the names of all of the delegates who attended and the names and locations of all of the churches that are there. The different issues that theyre discussing and recording in their minutes and there are financial records and theyre rich and incredibly rich. I saw so much more in them and it was so important to use, and you know, as you read them im noticing, though there are no women initially on the boards of these convention, but they show up, right . They show up in these accounts where theyre acknowledged for their donations of the convention which is the donation of the golden coin and then you see it happen again. Whats going on here that women are showing up this very particular way . To me it started to speak to how women become the central, financial figures and thats one of the ways we see them in the conventions and ask the people who are financially demonstrating the sacrificial giving that so many rely on, and about the role of black women and churches as financial people and im seeing it constructed in realtime as these women are being recognized for their giving and it also, of course, raises a question about how is black manhood being constructed in these spaces and churches and those kind of things which is another aspect of the story that i wanted to tell, and weve had great works that point to the ways that women played a role in the destruction of Baptist Conventions and activism and all these things and they take a step back and how is black manhood being constructed and it was something that i thought was worth trying to unearth. That thats also a construction thats happening in the spaces. And they were able to get through the Convention Minutes and if there was Something Else they can place here, too. Thank you so much. Thats a really good segway into a question that i wanted to kind of follow up on. I think part one of the central book in the beginning of the talk has to do with the relationship between black church organizing and politics in the formal politics sense and the sense of voting, Party Politics and electoral politics and so you talking about being interested and investigating what you can tell about the construction of black manhood through the Church Records leans neatly into the relationship between those developments within churches and whats going on in formal politics where in 1867 africanamerican men are in franchise for the first time and begin to vote. Black people begin to play a totally different and more Important Role in Nicole Meyers<\/a> turner and her book. Nicole turner is assistant professor of religious studies at yale university. She earned her ph. D in history at the university of pennsylvania, her masters at divinity at the seminary in new york and her bachelors degree from hairford college and shes the author of this 2020 book soul liberty, postemancipation virginia published this year by the university of North Carolina<\/a> press and before asking niconicole the first question i want to mention that this book appears in this conventional version of a hard copy, but also has two other versions and part of what makes her work so interesting is that it is so engaged from digital humanities and the book also exists as a conventional sort of conventional as she describes it verbatim, openaccess ebook and also as an enhanced openaccess ebook which shows off what dr. Turner was able to do with mapping and kind of Digital Technology<\/a> in order to develop her Research Findings<\/a> and so one of things i hope we get to talk about today is how she worked with those sources and what kind of promise she thinks digital humanities holds in this research into africanAmerican History<\/a> in particular. Just to start it off, dr. Turner, tell us a little bit about tell us about this book to people who dont know anything about it are its main arguments and what does it accomplish and how do you see it contributing to the conversation. That was a lot of question. Give us your general pitch about this book and what its Central Claims<\/a> are. First i want to say thank you so much for having me as part of the series and as part of a series of other scholars who will be here and also thank you for talking about my work and in the book soul liberty is the evolution of black religious politics and it is how black churches became political agents. I think there is a very common understanding of black churches as already politically engaged and my the aim of my book was to narrate that process and it wasnt also engaged in the same ways and that black churches are, in fact, historical spaces that have changed across time and were changed in the process of reconstruction and so thats what the main aim of the book is. Thank you so much. Well be bouncing back and forth, so i dont mean to catch you from two different sides. Were really delighted to read the book, and i have 9 million questions and ill ask them all at once and talk really fast. No, im kidding and i want to be patient for all of the things that i want to ask later. Im building off of what you just said i wonder if you can help us understand what you mean by soul liberty. Its not just a lovely title and its also a concept you return to over the book and it seems to speak to some of these intersections that youre so interested in in religion and politics and how theyre shaping each other and i wonder if you can get us started in what that means in your work. Sure. Thank you. So soul liberty actually comes from a quote in the Virginia Baptist State Convention<\/a> minutes where members of the convention were citing Roger Williams<\/a> pursuit of soul liberty in the formation of rhode island, whats interesting about the usage of that term is its not only a term that applied to the black baptists as part of the study and it applied to black episcopalians and the Apostolic Church<\/a> which started in southern virginia and North Carolina<\/a>, but the term soul liberty is the idea of religious freedom. This idea that black people could worship when, where and with whom they chose and it also points to this idea of equity and justice and righteousness that they were also pursuing in their religious communities and also in the broader landscape. So while it comes from a very particular baptist context, it is something that applies to the Virginia Baptist State Convention<\/a> and the black episcopalians who attended the Theological School<\/a> which was the first black seminary for priests in the fiscal tradition and the members of the Apostolic Church<\/a>. One of the few black denominations that was started in the south. One of the only ones that were started in the south. They all are pursuing this idea of being able to worship and also these ideas of freedom, equity, injustice. Your answer captures many of the fascinating aspects of it. One that particularly struck me and you note in your own notes is that that pursuit of liberty at first glance might read as liberty to worship separate from white interference which is an important part of the story, but also a liberty that allows for quite different types of formation in the religious world, and i was interested in the ways you write about baptist and the ame church sits so centrally in the literature which makes perfect sense and yet other religious experiences that episcopalians whom you mentioned were the africanamerican members of the mec and developed later and others seem to be harder to pin down in the literature. What do you think we gain when we study people who choose as in Saint Stephens<\/a> who operate in an almost completely of africanamerican space, but remain in a whitedominated denomination. As a historian, what drew you to those spaces, as well . I hear in your question a couple of things and one has to do with the definition of liberty and the differences in the denominations and their approaches, and i would say first, that the ability to see this landscape comes from doing a geographical look, right . A study that begins in a particular place in virginia and sort of not taking the lens in a particular denomination and i didnt come to it through the lens of the baptist and with the lens of virginia, with all three of those denominations and when you start to think about how each of these communities chose to pursue freedom, you know, it becomes really evident and the baptist and part of the trajectory of their struggle goes through, you know, in the beginnings where black baptists are organized already in conventions before the vote is is established by the 15th amendment and theyre already making arguments for their political participation and their skill and its something that was before the emancipation and there were black people organizing associations and so they had demonstrated the skill and the ability to participate as citizens through their own religious communities and then you find a very interesting, you know, story of st. Stephens Episcopal Church<\/a> in virginia which was started by a black woman who, in consultation with the white priest from the church that her family became members of, establishes an independent black church and one of the first black Episcopal Church<\/a>es for the community of petersburg and its an interesting story because people tend to associate the high Church Culture<\/a> and not with roots in an enslaved free black community. Churches with black Women Leadership<\/a> and in this instance, you have black people like caroline brag who helped establish the church and her grandson becomes in the readjustment movement and another thing that drew me to the virginia landscape, and george brag becomes involved and it becomes a critical agent and narrating black history, and reflects how the struggle was established in their own independent spaces and churches with associations and if its episcopalians that are navigating the landscape of engaging with former confederates as the student at the school as a participant in the readjustment movement and it opens up a way of thinking of how did black people go about forming this type of alliance. Thats one of the things that drew me to this particular case in virginia is how did they form this alliance. One of the things that becomes evidence, and theyre struggling for us and finding ways to achieve it in these various locations. Thats so much, nicole. This is so interesting. The majority, the vast majority of the book takes us into the postcivil war period and youre talking as the title suggest, the emancipation moment, but i wanted to have you talk about the transition to freedom and youre talking about an area in virginia where the vast majority of africanamericans before the civil war were enslaved and how would you describe for us and readers what that transition looked like. What were the aspect of black religious experiences during the time of slavery that informed what people did after emancipation and what were the particular challenges that people faced as slavery came to an end during the civil war and after ward and how do you understand and see the transition. I think the transition can be seen best by having a longstanding narrative by black Church Engagement<\/a> and the antibe antibellum churches where they were able to worship independent churches and one of the things we start to see in the postemancipation landscape are our debates about Land Ownership<\/a> and property and so theres this interesting aspect and thinking about Land Ownership<\/a> as something that came through churches and that black people were trying to navigate the Legal Systems<\/a> in trying to secure ownership by title and the formal ownership of churches that they had paid into help support and develop economically and didnt have the right to sort of full name ownership on the deed kind of situation. So part of that transition involves a transition to Property Ownership<\/a> and part of that, in the postemancipation period had to do with gender roles. One of the things i have to highlight is how theyre being established in Church Communities<\/a> and so part of what you can see or what i try to convey through telling the story is give the church back to petersburg and looking very closely at the landscape is how gender roles were actually being transformed in that moment and so one of the things i focus on in looking at the cases of unwed pregnancy which meetings handled a lot of different kinds of issues and i focus on the cases of unwed pregnancy because there is a clear transformation of how the community didnt hold both parties accountable for wanting to be pregnant out of wedlock for a brief moment in time, and they do allow for both parties to be held accountable and then they shift back to just holding the women accountable and part of perhaps as a result is women move back into this space of being only disciplined in church meetings. In this moment you start to see the rise of a ministerial figure who is male and has a particular gender status. So i think there are ways in which the leadership roles change and expand. How access to land and property is something that changes through the churches across this time and also how gender roles are being transformed on the landscape of religious institutions. And just to follow up on that question of gender roles, i feel like you make reference to the work the work on a later period of for instance, Glenda Gilmore<\/a> and to some extent barkeley brown about kind of an argument that either gender roles among africanamericans particularly in churches became to understand what we now understand to be conventional and women being a part of the church and not being in leadership roles and gender respectability that that emerged later in the 1890s or so and im just wondering, do you see that what youre finding is suggesting that all of the things that people came about later came about earlier and also i think that raises that question which is interesting and repeated a lot of different places that historians suggested that the emancipation period was a period of greater experimentation around gender hierarchy among africanamericans and just coming out of fluidity and contestation because, for example, so many families and so many marriages had been interrupted by the domestic slave trade and now you have a moment of flexibility. Are you finding something really different from that here . Yeah. I think yes. I think the short answer is yes. I think when you look at the petersburg landscape you definitely see the imposition of gender roles taking place much earlier, and the question is not only one of time period ask its also a place. Its also circumstance and also the leadership model and you know one of the things i talk about in the study and acknowledge is that this is a deep look into a particular communet and we need many more studies. Are they talking to got about this particular gender roles. I wish is part it is Church Records<\/a> that really revealed what was taking police on the ground is constructive. Was being transformed during that time. One of the places that we see that is in the conventions and conferences and these other organizational and networking levels and well come back to this in a little bit when we turn to mapping, but staying on the level of more your argument and i think one of the joys in reading your book and books of history that have this deep granularity is seeing it take something that on its face a lot of historians rush past because it doesnt seem that interesting. People get why congregations are interesting, but conferences and conventions and theres a lot of who is representing, and to explain why not only has meaningful and also interesting and i do think its one of the magical moments of the book to see you take this thing and i feel the impulse of, like, how do i get to the good stuff and this is the good stuff if you see it right or this networking in connection and also, though, as you say for the ways it ties back to your question about gender and about the ways that these spaces bein, not exclusively, but spaces of a male, ministerial privilege and i want to just tell people who havent yet read it and what you draw from and what you learned and why you think those spaces matter, and if youve got space, you know . What drew you to it . Did you know all along that that would be a telling part or did you know over the course of your study . Thank you so much, because i do remember people cautioning you about a couple of things and one, that there willnt be information, and theres not a lot in and when shoo produced the schedule of the convention, i was, like, wow that was constructive into something i didnt have insight absent reading the book and there was something to do and not be bored by them, and also the baptist Convention Minutes<\/a> are a treasure trove of information about black, religious and political life, preserved on microfilm. Some of them have whole 30year runs of their Convention Minutes<\/a> and every year you can find an annual convention and its robust and these exist for every state, almost and its a huge archive if you think about it about black, religious life that needs to be mine. As i got into them there is a lot here to see and it also came out of an investment in using the archive of black peoples lives, right. So in recognition that the archives of black religious life, in many instances can be small and mediated often through the eyes of white people. This is an archive that comes from black people about the experience and so it is really important for me to center those sources and to use every bit and i remember in graduate school, one of my instructors talking about being told that when you find something, you know, about black peoples lives you have to figure out how you can use it in the most robust way possible, and so it was really important for me to get those sources and get everything that i could from them and you cant help, but be struck by what is included in them. I mean, the names of all of the delegates who attended and the names and locations of all of the churches that are there. The different issues that theyre discussing and recording in their minutes and there are financial records and theyre rich and incredibly rich. I saw so much more in them and it was so important to use, and you know, as you read them im noticing, though there are no women initially on the boards of these convention, but they show up, right . They show up in these accounts where theyre acknowledged for their donations of the convention which is the donation of the golden coin and then you see it happen again. Whats going on here that women are showing up this very particular way . To me it started to speak to how women become the central, financial figures and thats one of the ways we see them in the conventions and ask the people who are financially demonstrating the sacrificial giving that so many rely on, and about the role of black women and churches as financial people and im seeing it constructed in realtime as these women are being recognized for their giving and it also, of course, raises a question about how is black manhood being constructed in these spaces and churches and those kind of things which is another aspect of the story that i wanted to tell, and weve had great works that point to the ways that women played a role in the destruction of Baptist Convention<\/a>s and activism and all these things and they take a step back and how is black manhood being constructed and it was something that i thought was worth trying to unearth. That thats also a construction thats happening in the spaces. And they were able to get through the Convention Minutes<\/a> and if there was Something Else<\/a> they can place here, too. Thank you so much. Thats a really good segway into a question that i wanted to kind of follow up on. I think part one of the central book in the beginning of the talk has to do with the relationship between black church organizing and politics in the formal politics sense and the sense of voting, Party Politics<\/a> and electoral politics and so you talking about being interested and investigating what you can tell about the construction of black manhood through the Church Records<\/a> leans neatly into the relationship between those developments within churches and whats going on in formal politics where in 1867 africanamerican men are in franchise for the first time and begin to vote. Black people begin to play a totally different and more Important Role<\/a> in Party Politics<\/a> becoming republicans and eventually becoming readjustors and so how do you explain the impact of the entry of africanamerican men in particular into the formal politics of voting and being a part of Party Politics<\/a> and the relationship between that and development within churches . Thank you. I think a couple of things and one has to do with what was playing out in the background in gillfield where the church is dealing with the issues of unwed pregnancies at the same time that black women amen are getti right to vote and other members of the church are running for office ask those things are having concurrently and it was a definite one to one that the church made the decision to womans participation, and it is i arrive at that assessment or its part of the assessment because as you look at the long trajectory of how the people in the church thought about themselves and the role in society and how they were being viewed and i think it has implications that suggest how they were thinking about how are the members being perceived as men are gaining the right to vote and be in office. The other thing that happens in terms of shaping and influencing Political Engagement<\/a> has to do with both the ways that black people were organizing in conventions in the way they were politically savvy and politically skilled and they were Holding President<\/a> ial elections and having committees and doing all the work of political participation. So to suggest that makes you somehow not be allowed to hold office at the highest levels would be for anybody and these people who have been advanced outside of the sort of box that the readjustment would be initially and it was a challenge. I think thats part of the way that they were influenced to Political Action<\/a> and its because they already had the skills and i also think that the associations and the ways that they helped to form a Community Across<\/a> county lines, across the lines of cities and the ways they brought people into contact with one another, formed a foundation for people to think about themselves as a collective. As a collective with political power, with the power to influence lit cal outcomes and so i was initially sort of brought into thinking about virginia because of the movement and it was a place that i want to study with this rec reconstruction and i was told you have to look at the ma homes papers and its a huge collection of records and what it was a record to was the mahome record where he actually did a canvas of black churches. So it was really an invitation to think about the role of black churches in this movement, and you know, so its really interesting to me, right . That mahome is, like, let me figure out where these churches are and how he might mobilize it for his own political end. What i discovered is hes late to the game and they already know who they are, where may are, but i dont think mo home, and they try gather information and its forming a consciousness of gathering political power through these networks. Thats great. For the sake of any of our audience members who dont have the readjustment movement down pat, can we ask you because its one of the as i said with conventions, theres a series of moments in the book where we really get these magnificent takes on really important and often separated in the literature moments and the key aspect of that is that you begin in slavery and you go deep into the late 19th century and really with a lot to say in the period in virginia politics. Do you mind giving just an overview and then ill do a followup in the many things that your book has to say about how we can turn and better understand or understand that moment differently. On a sort of what happened level that helps us understand mahome and the John E Mercer<\/a> langston movement. The movement, it was virginias reconstruction, right . It was the moment where a biracial coalition of black and white voters and politicians were able to gain control of the state legislature and ultimately the state patronage to effect the changes of allowing black people to sit on juries of establishing schools for black people like Virginia State<\/a> university. They actually carry out the work ever ending the whipping post and its a movement that threatened to destroy the south, and the coalition to black and white and former conservatives who threatened the south, and its often told the story of william mahome who was a former confederate general who is able to sort of mobilize the coalitions of black and white voters and, you know, because of his voluminous archive and having state elected officials who voted in conjunction with the readjustors to, basically they united over this argument about readjusting the state debt and when i initially started to study this, this is such an arcane set of municipal finance politics that how is it possible to build a coalition around these things and they organize over readjusting the state debt in part because the state was decimated after the civil war and financially decimated and there was a recognition on the part of white farmers and white folks that this was a detriment to the states advancement and also for black folks who formerly enslaved people that were responsible for taking care of it and while the debt was being tended to and the re readjustors tried to have a context in how they were trying to reorganize the finds. So thats the readjustor movement. In a nutshell. Thats great. And one of the great terms that you make connects to something that we got questions on and that im sure people will want to expand upon which is what you gained by map. In other words, how mapping didnt just let you show other people what you knew, but it became a tool for you to discover things that you had collected the information, but it was really as you started to pointing to maps how you start to see some of the kekds and especially in the relationship, the ways that your portrayal of the ma Home Movement<\/a> shifts to your understanding of the organization of the Baptist Churches<\/a>. I wonder if you can talk us to about how that interacts as sort of an argument and also how your argument emerged from your expertise in digital humanities and mapping. Sure. And so, you know, it was interesting because i think there are two arguments and one has to do with the politics and one has to do with mapping and maps, but i came to mapping because not only are they looking at the Church Records<\/a> and finding these lists of churches and also in the mahome records and in that particular canvas that he did sort of finding myself wanting to see visually where these people were and what was the landscape that he uncovered. And then when i was able to map and the gis affords and the ability to look at different layers of the map and look at different expressions of politics with the electoral returns and its the way people were connected and it allows you to look at different reflections of the Political Landscape<\/a> in relationship to one another that it might not be immediately conceived in your mind, right . About where these people are and what those networks mean, but one of the things that i discovered by mapping is that, you know, mahome only knew a small segment of what black people knew about their communities. So hes sort of grasping at what was already there and grasping at what black people already knew and that sort of emerges and the other thing that emerges from looking at the maps has to do with the depth of the different connections within the sort of Political Landscape<\/a>, so i can see where the state convention and the Baptist Convention<\/a> and the state convention and the Virginia Baptist State Convention<\/a> doesnt necessarily map on the readjustor movement support as one of the regional associations. What is the relationship between the Virginia Baptist State Convention<\/a> and some of these associations where the support is strongest and sort of seeing how even in these smaller communities they grapple with politics politics in a very in a much more sort of direct and rich way. So thats some of what im able to see by mapping is what mahome saw and didnt see. But then the other thing that really emerged for me by looking at the maps was the network. I had come across letters in the archive of people writing to mahome in support of their political candidates and making claims on the basicals of their geography. They were not like, my husband was a supporter of the readjusters, or, you know, my son and my husband are sick and i need support. It wasnt those kinds of letters. It was, we are supporting this person because they supported our Church Community<\/a> and we are reflective of our communities. When they sign, theyre signing from many different counties, not just any one particular location. I was like, this is really a reflection of a sense of political connection that can for me, sort of mapped well and to use the word map. It mapped well with the geographical Political Engagement<\/a> that was being fostered at the conventions. You can see how the larger landscapes of belonging are influenced in the political claims making that people engaged in because of the maps. I wouldnt have necessarily seen that literally seen with my eyes that argument had i not mapped it. Just a followup on that. Thank you. One question that came in advance was kind of the opposite, it asked, what are the down sides or the kind of critiques of digital mapping. What did you what were there things that you hoped to be able to do that you werent able to do or limitations in the technology. Tell us a little bit about some of the kind of trial and error ups and downs of your experience. So the mapping technology, i think it required me to do a lot of thinking about what it is that i hoped to be able to understand about the landscape using mapping. And that took me into a lot of the discourse around black digital humanities and the politics of mapping to understand how maps have been used to deny black people rights. How maps have been used to sort of reflect and perpetuate an equality for black people. And so it was really important for me as i was engaging in using this technology to think about how what i was doing was speaking back to those Power Dynamics<\/a> and trying to push back against those marginalizing and violent practices that maps have been used for. For me, literally representing black people on the map was significant and powerful and important to do. Using the archive of black life as the source to reflect black life was important. And so it was really, you know, trying to create a way of visualizing where black people were that motivated me. Now, there are limitations in the way that i was able to reflect that. And so, you know which is why the project was helpful in ways and i was glad to have the opportunity to present it by my editor at unc to actually do Something Like<\/a> the project which allowed me to have this third version of the book that allows me to have a map that actually moves. Once you start trying to lay layers on top of layers on top of layers, it just becomes kind of messy. Its hard to see. But working through folcum allowed me and others as i was finishing up the project to come up with ways to create a moving map. One that you can toggle on different layers and see the relationship. There are ways in which trying to reflect even using black peoples experience and lives, reflecting them on the map, you still need ways to make the maps movable and make them interactive in ways that push back against creating a map that is static, that shows you a reflection of reality and truth. It really has to be something more dynamic. I think thats one of the limitation that is you face in digital humanities but also can be overcome. There are more and more strategies to push back against those limitations. Thats one of the ones i came up against. I need something more than a static map. We should first before we start pulling questions which well do and please keep submitting, give you a moment to talk about if youre up for it the mapping black religion. Com. To make sure people know whats there and also what might be forthcoming with that, that might you tell us. Go beyond your book or show you you tell us what to expect to see there. Sure. Thanks. So its interesting because i started the mapping black religion project in conjunction with the manuscript because i was trying to find a way to do that kind of moving that i talk about, that ultimately became possible through the version of the book. And so i think if i had known about fulcrum, how might i have approached this digital site differently. And fulcrum allows a lot of what i think i imagined this website would do. But its not fully realized even in the book yet, ill say that. I still have the mapping black religion website which reflects more of the engagement, the digital humanities how im trying to use black life to interrogate mapping and mapping practices. Youll find a similar narrative of the maps that show the changing landscape of the political transformations that happened during this time. And that was the first stage of the project. The second stage is as im sort of working through trying to get it done has to do with making a more interactive site. One that would allow users to do more of the kinds of things i did by creating maps based on the different facets of black communities. Maybe there are other questions that you can ask based on the archive of churches and associations that ive gathered. Basically, it will take suck in all of the data ive trance scribed and allow users to interact with that and come to new insights about politics and religion. We started to sort of build in more information about some of the communities, some of the churches, some of the individuals, to allow more visualization of the networks, of people who were involved and engaged in the convention. Really pushing for that the insight about networks that the manuscript raises. Hopefully people will be able to see even deeper connections than the ones i saw. Thats great. Thanks so much. Im going to pull two questions together that ask about gender and race. One specifically, even, ill try and pose them each, but layout what connects them, i think theyre each asking in different ways about how the gender dynamics of a post emancipation world was shaped by direct power of white people and their gender dynamics or about engagement and institutions where that could be transmitted. One asked specifically how much the assertion of male domination was structured by participation in an e mipicapalion church, attempting to impose a set of inventions upon people tied to their free labor asking people asserting power in the churches that you study, influenced by this kind of admonishment, coming from northerners. How to think about the interaction between those goals and the rise of the kind of politics of respectability and gender roles and ministerial power that you trace on the ground. So when i think about the cases in gillfield church, the way that the church sort of arrives at the practice of excluding women from sorry, excluding men from being held accountable for unwed pregnancy, i connected to the landscape of politics and respectability and trying to create a space, but theres an element in which the church is at least from the minister or the pastors direction, trying to live out their vision of what it means to be Christian Community<\/a>. And part of that vision of Christian Community<\/a> has a set of practices dealing with conflict in community and trying to keep the communities together through the process of engaging conflict in a way that doesnt exacerbate the conflict but minimizes t. I think thats some of whats influencing the gender dynamic. Theyre trying to sort of tamp down the conflict in the community which, you know, dovetails with the politics and respectability. It dovetails with some of the, you know, claims of the Freedmans Bureau<\/a> around trying to shape black family lives and these models of sort of having men at the helm and the ones to which rights are being are being sort of, you know, dispersed or are being expressed. And so some of what happens is both an attempt to create community and maintain community, but at the same time, being sort of supportive of a set of dynamics that, you know, marginalize women visavis the Freedman Bureau<\/a> practices. I think this points me to think about how it is that, you know, thinking about decisionmaking practices in a Community Needs<\/a> to be sort of robust to think of the ways its serving the needs of the community but having other effects that maybe were not intended. And then you ask a question also in relationship to the church and whether or not there are ways that being affiliated with white churches is shaping gender dynamics and gender roles. Yes, to an extent that even the the meetings of the Baptist Churches<\/a> are not being that black Baptist Churches<\/a> do that, white Baptist Churches<\/a> do them, and they focus on issues of sexuality there too. There are ways in which some of the practices dovetail, but they have a particular kind of context and balance for the community that is using them in that particular moment. Theyre not just taking it from white people and implementing it, but they are, you know, working out of their own context to make something meaningful and useful for them in that moment. Just to follow up another question that somebody typed in, it has to do with your use of the term. The idea of community, a black community, Community Formation<\/a> is so important in africanAmerican History<\/a> and so i see i would imagine when youre using the term epistemology, youre trying to bring forward an interpretation of what Community Construction<\/a> means and how its done. But i would like to hear you this questioner asked, i would like to hear you talk more about the use of that term and what it might suggest im reading here, about political practice in a period of volatility that is, you know, a period when gains can be made but also lost really easily. What does it mean to talk about an epistemology of community. I would add to that question, think about it in a contemporary moment, how communities are changing and what that means. But, you know so epistemology of community was my way of calling out what it was that i observed in the records and what they were ultimately able to do with what they had in the records. And so it was about knowing, right, part of what is at stake for the conventions, the Baptist Convention<\/a>s as they are gathering their names of churches and ministers and locations, its about knowing who they are, that has, you know, a particular significance as baptist people in the landscape of religious possibilities and in a landscape where particularly in reconstructionist moment, black people can choose anywhere to worship, right . Its important for them to know who are baptist and how that community is growing. And so i really, again, was trying to call attention to that as a practice. Otherwise, you could easily look at those lists and think, its just a list, right . But theres this practice. I was trying to call attention to that. And i think, you know, yes, its in a moment of volatility, as things were changing. But its also dynamic, right . Because they are keeping these lists across time. So as their conventions are growing, they are documenting that transformation. And, you know, i think obviously it has limitations. It doesnt go to the nittygritty of the idea, right, the ideas of politics and what it is that any particular individual or group of individuals were pursuing in any moment as the Political Landscape<\/a> transformed. It doesnt tell us, you know, whether or not some of these people decided they wanted to stay aligned with the readjusters as the Readjuster Movement<\/a> was pushing against black men and black men Holding Political<\/a> office because thats who could hold office, as they were pushing against black men, rising to the level of running for congress. It doesnt tell us that. And so i think there are limits to that, knowing who belongs in that community. But it was an important practice to call attention to. Thats what they were gaming when they gathered their list. It had a political impact and import. Its such a creative way to think about institution building, really, and also usings tusing the sources you have available to zwdevelop a story. I think a lot of people who have done our research in social history, history of africanamericans have seen list and wondered what to do with them or can they what can i use this for, thinking about what youre describing is using it to think about how institutions in connections and networks were created. Anyway, sorry. Greg, why dont you go ahead. One thing you gestured too in that answer and a couple of the presubmitted questions asked you to reflect upon, having written a tremendous work of history, now talk about the present, right . To ask about how you understand both the relationship of the topics that you study to the present and about the relationship of this engagement of religion, politics and Community Formation<\/a> to create political change. How you might understand that in a period now and as the questioner asked specifically about how we might understand it in the period shaped by the movement for black lives. Yeah, and so i would come at it a couple of ways. First, i think for the current landscape, one of the things that i definitely had in mind with this work was thinking about black Church Communities<\/a> that come from one. I came from one that was very politically engaged, that for most of my life has been the muse for my work. Its really caused me to question these the relationship between religion and power and politics. And to think about how black Church Communities<\/a> engage politically. And also about the ways that black Church Communities<\/a> engage gender dynamics and how black churches think about themselves as historical actors. Part of what i hope the work suggests is even in this particular political moment that black churches and black religious communities will think about themselves in a historical moment. What is this particular moment calling us to do, right . Black churches changed across time. They changed from the moment of slavery to the period of emancipation and throughout. What are black churches being called to do in this particular moment. I think theres been a lot of attention given to and people automatically assume churches will be engaged in particular ways. But i think what this study shows is that churches responded to the moment, that they were engaged in the moment and they were making political interventions of the moment that they were in. And so i would say that would be one of the first things. As to be thinking about the movement for black lives, one of the things that is really clear for this moment that im studying in reconstruction and that is really evident today is that this whole discussion about black lives matter, i always tell my students when im teaching, when im teaching 19th century or africanamerican religious history or religion and politics, that the argument that black lives matter has been made forever. From the first enslaved people being brought here to the present. We can see it most powerfully that my book covers in the way that black churches and black people are pushing for the right to have sole liberty, to have the freedom to worship how they wish, to have equity, justice is freedom. The issue that comes up again and again, this is one of the questions from the historiology. Why did reconstruction fail . There was a lack of investment in the belief of black freedom and the value of black lives as black lives, right, as lives. And so in this moment, if theres anything we can gain from the study, black lives matter is being made in this moment and its not just for black people to make that argument. Its for the Larger Society<\/a> so really not just acknowledge it, but to deeply, like, accept that, right . Thats one of the things i would say about the moment. Black Church Communities<\/a>, you know, this is a particular political moment to be engaged in, to be thoughtful about. I would say to expand the critical analysis to an intersectional frame. Its not just about black people or men or women. Its intersectional. Thinking about how those categories relate to one another. And then that, you know, black lives matter is a fundamental concept that has to be embraced and it comes through in this study and so many more. Doctor turner, i think thats a perfect ending point. One minute before the hour and, you know, i think that was a beautiful way of kind of bringing your work on the reconstruction period forward to the present in ways that make us think and are really provocative. Before we go, i just want to thank our participants who were here. I want to thank you for doing so much to help us get set up and matt is the managing editor of the journal and works at penn state. So thanks so much to both of you for making this happen and, nicole, thanks, again. Thanks for this wonderful work and i hope we can continue the conversation. Thank you. Thank you also very much. This was a pleasure. Thank you. American history tv on cspan3. Exploring the people and events that tell the american story. Every weekend. Coming up this weekend, saturday at 6 00 p. M. Eastern on the civil war, a discussion about opiate addiction among civil war veterans with jonathan jones. At 8 00 p. M. On lectures in history, university of maryland Baltimore County<\/a> Professor William<\/a> blake on new deal politics and the role of Public Opinion<\/a> on issues such as Court Packing<\/a> and executive power. On sunday, American History<\/a> tv will mark the 400th anniversary of the pilgrims arrival in massachusetts starting at 4 00 p. M. Eastern on real america with four films. A look at the virtual may flower project which uses Virtual Reality<\/a> to recreate the ship. At 5 35 p. M. , a tour of plymouth, also the home of the may flower 2, a fullscale reproduction of the ship. Exploring the american story. Watch American History<\/a> tv this weekend on cspan3. The year before Abraham Lincoln<\/a> issued the emancipation proclamation, slaves in washington, d. C. , were freed. Up next on American History<\/a> tv, a history professor from Oberlin College<\/a> discusses the experiences of the newly freed slaves. Our next speaker is assistant professor of history and comparative american studies at Oberlin College<\/a> and conservatory. Shes no stranger to virginia,","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"archive.org","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","width":"800","height":"600","url":"\/\/ia601801.us.archive.org\/20\/items\/CSPAN3_20201120_201600_The_Civil_War_Black_Religious_Politics_After_Emancipation\/CSPAN3_20201120_201600_The_Civil_War_Black_Religious_Politics_After_Emancipation.thumbs\/CSPAN3_20201120_201600_The_Civil_War_Black_Religious_Politics_After_Emancipation_000001.jpg"}},"autauthor":{"@type":"Organization"},"author":{"sameAs":"archive.org","name":"archive.org"}}],"coverageEndTime":"20240716T12:35:10+00:00"}