What is it about?
Black Shapings of Freedom and Emancipation Celebrations in Saginaw, Michigan, 1839–1915 places Michigan at the center of regional, national and international emancipation celebrations prior to Juneteenth. Johnson examines how famed Saginaw photographers, Wallace and William Goodridge, William Atwood and others produced Emancipation Celebrations between 1869 and 1915. In 1885, organizers hosted Frederick Douglass and Detroit activist William Lambert in East Saginaw for a widely attended event. Thirty years later, Saginaw native Charles Warren continued this tradition when he and fifty-seven Black leaders in 17 cities across the state collaborated with other Black organizers from around the world to populate the Lincoln Jubilee in Chicago with examples of their status fifty years after the passage of the 13th Amendment.
Featured Image
Photo by JOHN TOWNER on Unsplash
Why is it important?
Black Shapings establishes how Black Saginaw, a little recognized Michigan community, engaged and helped inform a Diasporic discussion on the timing, methods and meanings of celebrating Emancipation.
Perspectives
For those who know the work of Zora Neale Hurston, Saginaw is my Eatonville. This essay researches the roots of the Black Saginaw communities that preceded me and reveals the examples of power and autonomy that characterize my experience growing up in this once industrial city.
Dr Michelle S. Johnson
Institute of Public Scholarship
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Black Shapings of Freedom and Emancipation Celebrations in Saginaw, Michigan, 1839–1915, Middle West Review, January 2021, Project Muse,
DOI: 10.1353/mwr.2021.0001.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
