Degrees of Freedom
The Origins of Civil Rights in Minnesota, 1865–1912
William D. Green
Winner of the Hognander Minnesota History Award
The true story, and the black citizens, behind the evolution of racial equality in Minnesota
Spanning the half-century after the Civil War, Degrees of Freedom draws a rare picture of black experience in a northern state and of the nature of black discontent and action within a predominantly white, ostensibly progressive society.
Accessible and illuminating, Green’s work is an indispensable too for understanding the long-view perspective on where we have been, and how we might get to where we want to be. —Minnesota Monthly
He had just given a rousing speech to a packed assembly in St. Paul, but Frederick Douglass, confidant to the Great Emancipator and conscience of the Republican Party, was denied a hotel room because he was black. This was Minnesota in 1873, four years after the state had approved black suffrage—a state where “freedom” meant being unshackled from slavery but not social restrictions, where “equality” meant access to the ballot but not to a restaurant downtown.
Awards
Hognander Minnesota History Award
$25.95 paper ISBN 978-1-5179-0933-8
392 pages, 15 b&w photos, 5 1/2 x 8 1/4, January 2020
William D. Green, professor of history at Augsburg College, is the author of A Peculiar Imbalance: The Fall and Rise of Racial Equality in Minnesota, 1837-1869.
Degrees of Freedom is a thoroughly researched exploration of black Minnesota and how the idea of ‘Minnesota Nice’ can be understood in terms of race relations and our state’s contribution to the civil rights movement. William D. Green offers us a meaningful look into how Minnesota managed to set precedents in antidiscrimination laws and provide progressive black and white leadership despite having a relatively small black population. He delves into the delicate balance of power between black activists and our progressive white society. This book will provide a deeper understanding of the challenges our community has faced and currently faces as we strive to close the achievement gap and move forward in creating true equal opportunity for all.
Archie Givens, president of the Givens Foundation for African American Literature
This is a deeply researched and beautifully written account of a small, yet influential and unexamined, community of African American political activists. In addition to telling their story, it places their lives in the context of important changes in race relations, nation building, and party politics in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century.
William P. Jones, author of The March on Washington: Jobs, Freedom, and the Forgotten History of Civil Rights
Accessible and illuminating, Green’s work is an indispensable tool for understanding the long-view perspective on where we have been, and how we might get to where we want to be.
Minnesota Monthly
A meticulously researched examination of the involvement of African American men in Minnesota politics from the mid- nineteenth century until the early twentieth... Impressively detailed.
Middle West Review 2.2
Degrees of Freedom provides a deeply probing and elegantly written reexamination of black and white lives intertwining through race and region.
Minnesota History
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MPR: 'Degrees of Freedom': The MN African American experience post-Civil War
MinnPost: 'Degrees of Freedom' chronicles black history in Minnesota during the post-Civil War era
Access Minnesota interviews William Green
MPR: 'Degrees of Freedom': The MN African American experience post-Civil War
Bill Green, Augsburg history professor and former superintendent of the Minneapolis school district, is out with a book about civil rights in Minnesota in the 50 years after the Civil War.
MinnPost: 'Degrees of Freedom' chronicles black history in Minnesota during the post-Civil War era
"It was easy, from Minnesota, to cheer on South Carolina as the confederate flag came down at state office buildings."