"Jennifer R. Harbour's Organizing Freedom provides a riveting account of the complex nature of Black emancipation activism in antebellum and wartime Illinois and Indiana. Harbour deals impressively with subjects few historians have examined in depth: early Black migration to the Midwest, Black organizational and community development beyond the Northeast, and Black women's activist and emancipation strategies within those regions."—Jazma Sutton, Middle West Review
"Jennifer R. Harbour provides us with a finely tuned multilayered exploration of black women's activism in the antebellum and Civil War eras."—Gayle T. Tate, Civil War Book Review
"Harbour moves away from the traditional focus on white abolitionists and black men, telling this story through black newspapers, church records, letters to black publications and white political leaders, and to a lesser extent white-created documents. . . . Her emphasis on institutions and women--not simply as a supplement but by reconceptualizing black activity as fundamentally about families and communities overall--goes beyond the individualized 'great man' perspective that often dominates historical understandings, especially of war and politics." —David Brodnax Sr., The Annals of Iowa
“Jennifer R. Harbour deftly teases out everyday acts of bravery in the black communities of Illinois and Indiana in their pursuit of emancipation as a conscious, concerted, collective, and ongoing action. With vivid examples she reveals men, women, and children not only surviving in a threatening environment but also defining the terms of freedom as something greater than the absence of slavery. This is an important contribution to Underground Railroad, abolitionist, and Civil War studies.”—Leigh Fought, author of Women in the World of Frederick Douglass
“Harbour skillfully presents the struggle for emancipation in a new light, one that illuminates the activism of black men and women and their extraordinary effort to carve out communities and civic organizations in the midst of white supremacy.”—Stephen I. Rockenbach, author of War upon Our Border: Two Ohio Valley Communities Navigate the Civil War
“This pathbreaking study achieves several important goals by broadening our definition of ‘emancipation,’ redirecting our gaze westward, forcing us to consider the important role of women, and describing in detail the crucial role of black organizational activity in the antebellum Midwest.”—Beverly C. Tomek, author of Pennsylvania Hall: A “Legal Lynching” in the Shadow of the Liberty Bell— -