Emancipated, Unfree
Did the Freedmen\u2019s Bureau, established in 1865, help or harm the formerly enslaved? Priya Kandaswamy traces the Bureau\u2019s activities in relation to vagrancy legislation and the placement of Black domestic workers in white people\u2019s homes. Labor discipline and white surveillance, she argues, took precedence over public assistance and meaningful forms of freedom for African Americans.\nPriya Kandaswamy, Domestic Contradictions: Race and Gendered Citizenship from Reconstruction to Welfare Reform Duke University Press, 2021\n\xa0\nThe post Emancipated, Unfree appeared first on KPFA.