| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 111.2

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 111.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Kathleen Ann Clark. Defining Moments: African American Commemoration and Political Culture in the South, 1863–1913. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 2005. Pp. x, 302. Cloth $55.00, paper $19.95.

In the contentious field of Civil War commemoration, each agenda has its moment. For some, it is a brief one; others have a more lasting impact. In May of 1862, long before the war had ended—when its final outcome, indeed, was unknown—African Americans in Norfolk, Virginia, asserted their particular agenda, at first with spontaneous expressions of delight as the Confederates retreated from the city, later with a more organized day of public thanksgiving. Showing rather more confidence in the efficacy of the Union army under George B. McClellan than many in the North at that point, Virginian African Americans ensured that emancipation would have to be on the Union agenda, too. Even amid the turmoil and confusion of armed conflict, when no one, least of all the Union troops in Virginia, understood fully the long-term implications of the war they were engaged in, African Americans had already left slavery behind, in mind if not yet wholly in body. Kathleen Ann Clark describes events in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1862 as "some of the most assertive wartime celebrations" in that state, through which "black Virginians lay claim to a vital form of public rite and civic participation" (pp. 15, 17). Her very fine and detailed study explores in depth the development of the southern black commemorative tradition both during the war and in its aftermath, assessing how this both reflected and informed "ongoing debates among African Americans over how they could best represent themselves" in a world apparently made new (p. 3).

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