Resources for Learning about Middle Tennessee African American History

Update:  The African American Heritage Society of Williamson County holds free history lectures on the (usually) the first Friday of each month at the McLemore House.  To learn about upcoming topics, please check out our Facebook page.

******************
Whenever I do any public speaking I like to bring my "props" - sometimes these are the pension files of the men I am speaking about, or copies of original newspapers from the time period, or old school books that might have been used by my subjects.  Anything tangible that people can see and feel.  I almost always set up a table of books that I have used to research my topic because I think many people don't realize that there are so many resources out there.  In fact, I usually have so many things with me I fill up an empty laundry basket!  

Recently someone asked me if I could share my list of resources and I thought it would make a great blog post for those of you interested in exploring these topics more for yourself.  I have provided links to Amazon.com for many of these resources - but where possible, I encourage you to look at the listing for information but try to buy the books from your local book sellers.

Franklin and Williamson County

• Thelma Battle is a Williamson County institution - she has written many books about our local African American heritage and should be considered first as a resource when starting your journey.
• We Ran Until Who Lasted the Longest 2007
• Raining in the House, Leaking Outdoors 2010
• Putting off and Putting on 'Til I Finally Got Here, 2014
• Natchez Area Revisted 2017
• Rick Warwick, Williamson County's official historian has a real heart for this subject and has written a great book, Williamson County in Black and White, which provides a wonderful overview of Williamson County's African American history - this is a great starting point to understanding our local past; the book may be available through the Heritage Foundation of Franklin and Williamson County but it is also available online here.
• Slave Holders in 1860 Tax Book, Williamson County Historical Society Journal, Issue 31 (2000).
• Freedom and Work in the Reconstruction Era - The Freedmen's Bureau Labor Contracts of Williamson County, Tennessee, edited by Rick Warwick, 2006 - this is a compilation of the contracts negotiated between the newly freedmen and landowners in Williamson County.  It provides a fascinating look at how the formerly enslaved were navigating the first steps of freedom - and the conditions those who had been enslavers were trying to keep in place over the conditions of their employment.  The contracts sometimes contain great genealogical clues such as family relationships.
• Unwritten  History of Slavery, Fisk University - these are interviews conducted with former slaves in and around the Nashville area, including a few with individuals from Williamson County
• 
  

Websites and Videos

• You might also check out this blog post for some driving tours and videos about local historical sites relevant to Williamson County's African American history. While not a book it gives a good overview of our local history.
• The Williamson County Library's Special Collections Department has compiled 20 years' worth of Thelma Battle's photographs into a video that you might find educational and certainly interesting as well.  
• Nashville Public Television has produced a wonderful documentary about Tennessee's first African American legislators who were elected during Reconstruction - 

Middle Tennessee African American History

• The African-American History of Nashville, Tennessee, 1780-1930: Elites and Dilemmas by Bobby L. Lovett (1999)
• Trial and Triumph: Essays In Tennessee's African American History by Carol Van West (2002) - anthology of articles from the Tennessee Historical Quarterly
• Nashville, Tennessee (Black America Series) by Tommie Morton-Young (2000) 
• Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Tennessee Narratives (2016)
• From Tennessee Slave to St. Louis Entrepreneur: The Autobiography of James Thomas edited by Loren Schweninger (1984) this is a fascinating autobiography by a man who grew up as a young free boy of color in Nashville (originally enslaved but his freedom was purchased by his mother). He describes his life as a barber in Nashville, travels to New Orleans in the pre-Civil War era, and live during Reconstruction.
• The Negro in Tennessee by C Perry Patterson (a PhD Dissertation) - Austin, Texas: The University of Texas, 1922. Free digitized copy, this book should be read with the understanding that it was written nearly 100 years ago; it views slavery without  little insight, but it is valuable for its information about the slavery system and laws in Tennessee.
• In 1978, Bobby L. Lovett's Ph.D. dissertation, "The Negro in Tennessee, 1865-1866: A Socio-Military History of the Civil War Era," appeared as a paperback and a hardback by University Microfilm International of Ann Arbor, Michigan, and addressed the neglected history of black Tennesseans during the Civil War period. Lovett, a Tennessee State University history professor, concentrated on the Civil War period because it was a chapter of Tennessee's history that had been purposely distorted by white southern historians. Lovett's dissertation was preceded by his scholarly article, "The Negro's Civil War in Tennessee, 1861-1865," which was published in the ASNLH's Journal of Negro History (1976).
• Slavery's End In Tennessee by John Cimprich - an in depth review of race relations during the Civil War in Tennessee, describing the paternalistic views of the white reformers and the former enslavers.
• Slavery In Clover Bottoms: John McClines Narrative by Jan Furman (1998) - this book describes the life of a man who was a slave on a large plantation in what is today East Nashville.  When he was about 10 years old he joined the US Army soldiers who were in the area to work as a mule driver and later an officer's assistant.  His descriptions are fascinating and provide a wonderful view of life on a Middle Tennessee plantation in the immediate pre-War period.  Even though he didn't live in Williamson County, its not hard to imagine that his life was similar to those of the enslaved here.  Additionally, his time in the Army brought him to Franklin and Williamson County.
• Report of the General Superintendent of Freedmen, 1864 - this is the original report, written as the Civil War was winding down, reporting on the condition of the "Freedmen" in Tennessee. 

US Colored Troops

• Ready To Die For Liberty: Tennessee's United States Colored Troops in the Civil War 
by Joseph E. Brent and Maria C. Brent (2013) - a book specifically about the experience of Tennessee's veterans of the US Colored Troops
• Freedom: Series II: The Black Military Experience: A Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861-1867 by Ira Berln, Joseph P. Reidy and Leslie S. Rowland (Editors) (1983)
• Freedom by the Sword: The U.S. Colored Troops, 1862-1867 by William A. Dobak - probably the most comprehensive book about the US Colored Troops.
• In Their Own Words: The Abernathy (Eason, Rivers, and Tarpley) Slaves of Giles County, Tennessee by Kimberly A. Chase (2015) - a book that compiles the stories of all the US Colored Troop veterans from one plantation
• A Grand Army of Black Men: Letters from African-American Soldiers in the Union Army 1861-1865 b Edwin S. Redkey
• African American Faces of the Civil War: An Album by Ronald S. Coddington (2012) 
• Like Men of War: Black Troops in the Civil War by Noah Andrew Trudeau (2002)  
• Campfires Of Freedom: The Camp Life of Black Soldiers during the Civil War by Keith P. Wilson (2002) 
• The Negro's Civil War: How American Blacks Felt and Acted During the War for the Union by James M. PcPherson (2003)
• The United States Colored Troops: The History and Legacy of the Black Soldiers Who Fought 
  in the American Civil War by Charles Rivers Editors (2016)
• Black Soldiers in Blue: African American Troops in the Civil War Era by John David Smith (editor)