This book has existed in my mind since I first found some of the materials with the help of the late Detroit activist Christopher Alston and the late Sara Dunlap Jackson of the National Archives, who first taught me how to negotiate the collections. Walter Hill at the Archives began where Sara left off. Rodney Ross of the Archives Legislative Center and the entire staff in the Manuscript Division have tolerated more of my ever more detailed inquiries about the records of the Pension Bureau and the Post Office Department than anyone should have to bear. Also in Washington, at Howard University’s Moorland-Spingarn Collection, Joellen Bashir and Donna Wells never tired of helping me track down a person or a photograph. Staff at the Postal Library and Archives in Washington, the National Archives Photographs and Films Division, and the Library of Congress Photographs and Film Division patiently helped me find what was available.
At the Historical Research Room at the Linebaugh Public Library in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, Donna Jordan, the overworked one-person staff member, let me wander freely through the records. Carol Kaplan at the Nashville Public Library, and Karina McDaniel and Marilyn Hughes at the Tennessee State Library and Archives aided in documenting the social context. Deborah O. Cox at the Nashville Metropolitan Government Archives assisted in tracking down materials in her collection and anywhere else she thought they might be found. Joe Daugherty McClure, law librarian for the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals Nashville Library helped to confirm the composition of the jury in the absence of a trial transcript.
Tom Miller, Manuscript Specialist at the Western Historical Collection, Ellis Library, University of Missouri-Columbia, and Arvah Strickland Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Missouri-Columbia aided in deciphering the Boone county records. The staff at the New Orleans Public library, Louisiana Division, who have sustained me for years as I work on other projects, and at the New Orleans Notarial Archives helped track down several members of the New Orleans chapter.
Historians John Egerton, Genna Rae McNeil, Barbara Savage, Carroll Smith Rosenberg, Steven Hahn, and Rebecca Scott gave valuable advice. Melinda Chateauvert helped me think more critically about social movement theory. Deadria Farmer-Paellmann of the Restitution Study Group, and Attorney Willie Gary shared useful information concerning the present-day reparations movement. Jacqueline Ridly Jennings, Robert Natalini, and Luther Adams assisted with the research, and Maida Odom contributed a number of good ideas. John Hope Franklin assured me that the Ex-Slave Pension Movement was virtually unknown, even among historians, which led me to actually sit down and write the book.
My editor Victoria Wilson and my agent Charlotte Sheedy recognized the importance of this book to the history of the late-nineteenth-century United States. Thanks to Krishna Toolsie, who, as always, helped me find time to write, and Zachary Wagman, who kept us on track. Mindy graciously shared her ideas, companionship, and encouragement.
Mary Frances Berry
Washington, DC.