|The story of Black soldiers making the Civil War a fight for their freedom is a decisive one in American history. Rarely does a people have the opportunity to make such a concerted decision to determine its fate. African Americans seized this one to prove their dedication to the cause of ending slavery, whatever other Americans thought the war was about, enlisting in military in their hundreds of thousands, despite unequal pay, discrimination, and mistreatment. |
The Mirror of Race has published one essay, by Erina Duganne, on "Black Civil War Portraiture in Context." We hope to publish more essays on this topic in the future.