The Limits of Emancipationist Memory in Richmond

This chapters explores Black Richmonders’ attempts to define the memory of emancipation in the city, state, region, and nation. Three Emancipation celebrations offer a window onto the forces and processes shaping the commemorations and African Americans’ ability to influence the Emancipationist tradition. In 1866, they planned a parade that recognized the first anniversary of emancipation and Union victory. White opposition, however, contributed to a more subdued event. In 1890, a conference on the possible establishment of a National Day of Thanksgiving failed to secure the April third date as an official Black commemorative tradition. The debates revealed Black Richmonders’ diminishing power to shape national Emancipationist traditions. While applying valuable lessons learned, Black Richmonders organized a month-long spectacle celebrating fifty years of post-emancipation progress in 1915. But even these Emancipationist adherents could not overcome the issues of race, public memory, the national reconciliation impulse, and changing African American demographics. Recognizing that not all African Americans embraced a single memory of the Civil War, these episodes shed light on the limits of Emancipationist commemorative tradition as a singular and unifying collective Civil War memory despite the concerted efforts of Black Richmonders.