Fighting for Citizenship: Black Union Soldiers on the Battlefield and in Politics

Accès

À propos

Guelph Museums’ 2020-2021 military lecture series is going digital! Watch the live online event at guelphmuseums.ca. Dana Weiner presents, Fighting for Citizenship: Black Union Soldiers on the Battlefield and in Politics.

During the U.S. Civil War, African American men fought to join the Union ranks. Their struggle was just one operation in a much longer rights campaign that both free and enslaved people fought. Across the nation, thousands of Black men believed that they must join in the effort to defeat the Confederate States of America, but they confronted initial resistance to their offers of service. As soon as they could, they took advantage of the opportunities to participate in the Union war effort. This talk will explore Black men’s military service, their challenges and triumphs in wartime, and how they used their skills and experiences to gain political and civil rights in the post-war era.

Dana Elizabeth Weiner is associate professor of history at Wilfrid Laurier University. Her publications include “Legal Ambiguities on the Ground: Black Californians’ Land Claims, 1848-1870” in Beyond the Borders of the Law: Critical Legal Histories of the North American West(University Press of Kansas, 2018) and Race and Rights: Fighting Slavery and Prejudice in the Old Northwest, 1830-1870 (Northern Illinois University Press, 2013). Her current research concerns citizenship claims and rights activism among people of African descent in early California.

Offered in partnership with the Laurier Centre for Military, Strategic and Disarmament Studies.

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Guelph Museums

Guelph Museums consists of three heritage sites -- Guelph Civic Museum, McCrae House, and Locomotive 6167 -- where we explore our local histories through permanent and changing exhibitions, interactive galleries, as well as special events and engagement activities. Located in an historic building (established 1856), the Guelph Civic Museum is home to a collection of over 40,000 artifacts that bring our regional narratives, past and present, to life. McCrae House (designated 1966) is the birthplace of Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae (1872-1918), the First World War doctor, soldier and poet who penned “In Flanders Fields” (1915). Locomotive 6167 (built in 1940) is one of 203 “Northern” locomotives used by Canadian National Railways during the Second World War and for special excursion trips (1960-1964). Guelph is steeped in rich Indigenous history and home to many First Nations, Inuit and Métis People today. Guelph Museums is situated on the Between the Lakes Purchase, No. 3 Treaty territory. We respectfully acknowledge the Attawandaron, Anishinaabek, Haudenosaunee and Métis Peoples as the traditional stewards of the land, as well as our treaty partners the Mississauga of the Credit First Nation. We continue to strengthen our relationships with the Original Peoples of Turtle Island, as we move forward together in the search for collective truth and healing. Guelph Museums is committed to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action and we strive to initiate dialogues and create safe spaces for truth telling. These guiding principles inform all that we do at Guelph Museums.