Examining the faces of emancipation

(CBS News) Exactly 150 years ago from Tuesday, in a nation torn by civil war, President Abraham Lincoln declared slaves in rebel states to be "forever free," but the Emancipation Proclamation did not end the war.

It did, however free African-Americans to see themselves in a new light.

Many of the images have never been seen by the public. Taken between 1860 and 1880, they show newly-freed blacks in elegant dress, looking poised and confident. History professor Barbara Krauthamer has studied them for more than 10 years.

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Faces of emancipation: 1860 to 1880

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Krauthamer said: "After 1863 and the Emancipation Proclamation, the pictures were a way of reaffirming that freedom and the sense of dignity that accompanied freedom."

More than a thousand of the photos were discovered in archives and libraries across the country, like the Schomburg Research Center in Harlem. The center has put a dozen of them on display to mark the proclamation's anniversary. The photographs are also part of a new book co-written by Krauthamer called "Envisioning Emancipation."

"I think the legacy of the Emancipation Proclamation gave every African-American person a sense of hope and inspiration," Krauthamer said.

That so many were in military uniform is not a coincidence.

"Look at them; they are so dignified. They are the epitome of manhood, of patriotism, of honor," Krauthamer said. "There was a sense they were fighting for their people and their nation."

In one family photograph, the various skin complexions of the children exposed one of slavery's most disturbing legacies.

"It was suppose to speak in part to the sexual abuse of enslaved women by their slave masters and by other slave-holding men in the South," Krauthamer said.

Nearly all of the pictures were taken by black photographers.

"For free black people in the 19th century in the United States, photography proved to be a powerful and important way of representing themselves as Americans, as intellectuals, as artist," Krauthamer said.

It is a view of freedom, put in focus by a lens.

[fgdnsss]

Typo: *racist

[fgdnsss]

@mtset

I am sorry to have to say it, but your comment makes you come across as being beyond foolish.

In a rascist system that viewed anyone with a drop of black blood in them as subhuman, what makes you think that the 'powers that be' of the time would have considered the rape/abuse of a woman of African descent as a crime full stop (let alone one worth recording). Yet you have living, walking, talking proof that the practice of raping women of African descent was widespread in the fact that the overwhelmingly majority of African-Americans (be they of dark or light complexion) have some degree of European ancestry. Now how do you suppose that got in there?

In the vein of your way of thinking, I suppose you also think lynching and maiming wasn't so widespread if it wasn't recorded as official crime data.

It's shocking to me that some still cannot acknowledge the truth of what took place - even when confronted with irrefutable evidence, and even when their very mindset (of white = good and black = bad) is a direct legacy of said past.

[citizenstakecontrol]

History in this country sucks at times.....Remember it is skewed as to who is telling it.......EP was a war measure and didnt free anyone...it was done to demoralize the south.....

[theartist456]

I am an artist, and have used some of the images shown in this story in my website portfolio: BOUND: Who's Your Daddy?" The group of several newly freed slaves photographed together was incorrectly identified as a "family". This is a misrepresentation because they were not related to one another. If you research these photographs thoroughly, you will find that all of them had names. They were not anonymous Black people "silently drifting through time."

[lillyhorton]

I saw the name Booker T. Washington and Sojourner Truth however all the other photos lack names. "Who's Your Daddy"? What a horrible title but it seems to suit you. BTW who's is spelled WHOSE.

[mtset]

Psychobabble! What are the people in these pictures thinking?

As for black/white interracial rape, the data shows it is almost exclusively a black on white crime.

[jimmydon7]

The variation is shades for some families, it's obvious the children are the mothers but not the fathers, and by their complexion is difficult to see that they are the mothers, but that's the strange legacy of slavery.

[MIO42]

A Work still in Progress
Probably will never be Finished

[retiredWAC]

LOL! What a load of crap! President Lincoln freed the FREE Slaves, not the Slaves who were not free. If you were a Freed Slave, you still stood a strong change of being captured by bounty hunters and re-enslaved. The EP did essentially nothing to help Slaves. As for the Black men in uniform - most were sent off to war by their Masters. This was still the era of Conscription - a way to pay others to do your duty for you, and it saved them a lot of money to just send in one of their slaves. This is not a view of freedom. It's the 1800s version of photoshop.

[CuriousServant]

The president had courage to do what was right. So many presidents have twisted the rules, sometimes broken them, including our current one. It is true we need to hold them accountable, keep them in bounds. But we should also always, ALWAYS, grant them the respect the office deserves, requires.

That has been lacking of late, growing ever since we ran Nixon out.

But, the judgement on a presidency doesn't happen while he is in office. It happens with distance, perspective. Kennedy, FDR, Truman... all great men, all questioned rigorously while in office.

The Emancipation Proclamation plummeted us into war, was probably illegal, and did not free all the slaves, but it was a first step, one that our nation had been wrestling with even before the Constitution was written.

May God bless us, our president, and our future, though we fall so short in deserving it.

[lillyhorton]

So many nameless faces silently drifting through time.