{"id":13714,"date":"2011-05-09T05:21:40","date_gmt":"2011-05-09T05:21:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=13714"},"modified":"2014-09-14T20:52:53","modified_gmt":"2014-09-14T20:52:53","slug":"speaking-about-southern-unionists-and-mixed-race-people-a-report-and-an-announcement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=13714","title":{"rendered":"Speaking About Southern Unionists… and Mixed-Race People: A Report and an Announcement"},"content":{"rendered":"

Speaking About Southern Unionists… and Mixed-Race People: A Report and an Announcement<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Renegade South: histories of unconventional southerners<\/a>
\n2011-05-07<\/p>\n

Victoria E. Bynum<\/a><\/strong>, Emeritus Professor of History
\nTexas State University, San Marcos<\/em><\/p>\n

I just returned from a wonderful visit to Leiden University<\/a> in the Netherlands, where I spoke generally about Civil War Southern Unionists and specifically about The Free State of Jones<\/a> as part of that university\u2019s yearly American Studies Lecture Series. In commemoration of the sesquicentennial of the Civil War<\/a>, this year\u2019s theme was \u201cThe American Civil War After 150 Years: An Unfinished War?\u201d<\/p>\n

I was impressed by the deep interest in the American Civil War displayed by Leiden students and faculty. I\u2019m happy to report there were no arguments between True Believers in either the noble \u201cLost Cause\u201d of the Confederacy, or the total benevolence of Northern motives and goals in thwarting the South\u2019s secession from the Union. Rather, discussions centered on understanding that many Southerners\u2013white as well as black\u2013opposed secession and the creation of the Confederacy, and that many more turned against the Confederacy as the war dragged on. How common across the South was guerrilla warfare such as that of Jones County, Mississippi?, they wanted to know. Who was Newt Knight? This question led to a discussion about the deep need displayed by Civil War partisans to turn Newt into either a murderous traitor to \u201dThe South,\u201d or, conversely, into an abolitionist whose racial views anticipated the modern Civil Rights Movement…<\/p>\n

…There was special interest among the Leiden audience in the mixed-race community that grew out of Newt Knight\u2019s wartime collaboration with Rachel Knight, the former slave of his grandfather, Jackie Knight. Many of the questions centered on issues of racial identity and the historical importance\u2013and limits\u2013of the \u201cone drop rule<\/a>\u201d in determining such identities. Members of the audience were fascinated by the variety of racial identities assumed by, as well as imposed upon, descendants of Newt Knight, his white wife Serena, and the two mixed-race women\u2013Rachel Knight and her daughter George Ann\u2013by whom he had children.\u00a0 Historically, they understood, race is a social, political, and legal construction rather than a biologically rational system…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Speaking About Southern Unionists… and Mixed-Race People: A Report and an Announcement Renegade South: histories of unconventional southerners 2011-05-07 Victoria E. Bynum, Emeritus Professor of History Texas State University, San Marcos I just returned from a wonderful visit to Leiden University in the Netherlands, where I spoke generally about Civil War Southern Unionists and specifically […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1295,459,8,20],"tags":[1456,2317,1453,1454],"class_list":["post-13714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa","category-history","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-newton-knight","tag-renegade-south-histories-of-unconventional-southerners","tag-victoria-bynum","tag-victoria-e-bynum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13714\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}