Fractured Freedoms

Download or read book Fractured Freedoms written by David T. Ballantyne and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2025-02-04 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: David T. Ballantyne’s Fractured Freedoms is a riveting history of central Louisiana from the 1860s to the 1890s, focusing on majority-Black Rapides Parish during Reconstruction. Using the region as a case study, Ballantyne reveals what is, in part, a rural Reconstruction success story, emphasizing the resilience of Black politics and the persistence of significant divisions among white residents that allowed the Republican Party to gain and maintain power there. It was only with the collapse of state-level Republican power in 1877 that Democratic forces in the parish were able to dismantle local Republican political control and gradually constrict Black freedoms.