Frontiers of Freedom: Cincinnati’s Black Community, 1802–1868 by Nikki M. Taylor (review)

Reveiw Essay Nikki M.Taylor Frontiers ofFreedom:Cincinnati' s Black Community,18021868 . Ohio University Press,2005. 332 pp. ISBN 0821415808 ( paper), 524.95 Darrell E. Bigham 1 r ikki Taylor' s new book on the African American community of Cincinnati 4 7. adds to a rapidly growine body of litU . erature on black Americans'urban experiences, a corpus ofwork that began to appear well over fbrty years ago. As Kenneth W. Goings and Raymond A. Mohl note in * e New African American Urban History Thousand Oaks,Cal.: SAGE Publications, 1996), the earliest scholarship predictably focused on America' s largest cities. Since then a number of studies of smaller places have appeared, several of which have focused on Ohio River Valley cities, including George C. Wright's Lge behind a Veil. Blacks in Louisville, Kentucky, 18651930 ( Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1985) and my own We Ask On@ a Fair Trial: A History oftbe Black Community of Evansville, Indiana Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987).In addition, Henry Louis Taylor ,Jr., edited a collection of essays concerning Frodifers of Freedom 9 ·. m 4 Cincinnati' s Black Communit** i jit¢* St,» 4 - . , ,» «> 1802186 # j«' kY* Gk4M.Taj16* 1-{ 1..... 1 . Cincinnati's black community,entitled Race and the City: Work,Community ,and Protest in Cincinnati,18201970 Urbana:University ofI] linois Press, 1993), and more recentlyJoe W. Trotter, Jr., and Eric Ledell Smith edited a volume that included several chapters on Pittsburgh Lf/ rican Americans in Pennsylvania: Shifting Historical Perspectives University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press,1997)]. In his Ri' uer Jordan: African fllnerican Life in tbe Ohio Valley Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1998), Trotter compares Cincinnati, Eva»nsville, Louisville, and Pittsburgh,relying heavily on historical studies of those cities. Even smaller cities have received attention in recent years,including Cairo,Illinois, explored by Christopher K. Hays in " The AfricanAmer SUMMER 2006 41 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM ic an Struggle for Equality and Justice in Cairo, Illinois, 18651900 " Illinois Historical Journal 90 ON' inter 1997), 26584 ], an article based on his 1996 Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Missouri,Colurnb .[ a. Jacqueline Yvonne Blackrnore's unpublished dissertation, African Peter C]· ark, principal of Gaines High School. Illustration from Frontiers of Freedom Americans and Race Relations in Gallatin County,Illinois from the Eighteenth Century to 1870" ( Northern Illinois University, 1996), focuses on the even smaller Ohio River community of Shawneetown. Unfortunately, state histories in the region have tended to give African Americans short shrift. Notable exceptions in recent writing are James H. Madison ,7beIndiana Way( Bloomington:Indiana University Press, 1986); Lowell H. Harrison and James C. Klotter, f A New History of Kentucky Lexington: University Press of Kentucky,1997); and Andrew R. L. Cayton, Ohio.1be History of a People Columbus: ' Ihe Ohio State University Press, 2002). The latter is particularly ittentive to African Americans, though its exploration of race in Cincinnati and the Ohio River communities of the state is mostly limited to the antebellum era. Despite these e: ceptions,the paucity of attention to African Americans in the Ohio Valley in most written accounts reflects a larger tendency.The significsince of Ohio River communities is generally downplayed after 1850 o/ving to the assumption that the coming ofrailroads on the north shore tutrned citizens' eyes inland, making the river an insignificant part of subsequent development. This is particularly true of the Illinois histories ,but see also my " River of Opportunity: Economic Consequences of ttie Ohio," in Always a River: Tbe Obio River and tbeAmerican Experience, ed. Robert L. Reid ( Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991). Ihere are a number of solid histories of African Americans in several Ohio River states, including David A. Gerber' s Black Ohio and the Color Line,18601915 Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1976), and Emma Lou l[ hornbrough's * e Negro in Indiana Before 1900: A Study of a Minority [ Indiana Historical Collections,Vol. 37 ( Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Bureau, 1957) 1. Marion B. Lucas' s A History « Blacks in Kentucky, Vol 1:From Slavery to Segregation, 17601891 Frankfort: Kentucky Historical Society, 1992) recognizes what earlier studies of sl:ivery in Kentucky did not: that the African American experience in tt.e Bluegrass State was multifaceted and exerted...