Close Menu
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram
    • Home
    • About Us
    • Digital Subscription
    • Advertisement
    • Contact Us
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram
    The Tennessee TribuneThe Tennessee Tribune
    Advertise With Us
    • Home
      • COVID-19 Resource Center
        • Dr. Henry Louis Gates’ PSA Radio
      • Featured
    • News
      • State
      • Local
      • National/International News
      • Global
      • Business
        • Commentary
        • Finance
        • Local Business
      • Investigative Stories
        • Affordable Housing
        • DCS Investigation
        • Gentrification
    • Editorial
      • National Politics
      • Local News
      • Local Editorial
      • Political Editorial
      • Editorial Cartoons
      • Cycle of Shame
    • Community
      • History
      • Tennessee
        • Chattanooga
        • Clarksville
        • Knoxville
        • Memphis
      • Public Notices
      • Women
        • Let’s Talk with Ms. June
    • Education
      • College
        • American Baptist College
        • Belmont University
        • Fisk
        • HBCU
        • Meharry
        • MTSU
        • University of Tennessee
        • TSU
        • Vanderbilt
      • Elementary
      • High School
    • Lifestyle
      • Art
      • Auto
      • Tribune Travel
      • Entertainment
        • 5 Questions With
        • Books
        • Events
        • Film Review
        • Local Entertainment
      • Family
      • Food
        • Drinks
      • Health & Wellness
      • Home & Garden
      • Featured Books
    • Religion
      • National Religion
      • Local Religion
      • Obituaries
        • National Obituaries
        • Local Obituaries
      • Faith Commentary
    • Sports
      • MLB
        • Sounds
      • NBA
      • NCAA
      • NFL
        • Predators
        • Titans
      • NHL
      • Other Sports
      • Golf
      • Professional Sports
      • Sports Commentary
      • Metro Sports
    • Media
      • Video
      • Photo Galleries
      • Take 10
      • Trending With The Tribune
    • Classified
    • Obituaries
      • Local Obituaries
      • National Obituaries
    The Tennessee TribuneThe Tennessee Tribune
    Local

    Fort Negley Park announces 2025 ‘Path to Freedom’ Lecture

    adminBy adminSeptember 4, 2025Updated:September 4, 2025No Comments4 Mins Read
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Telegram Pinterest Tumblr Reddit Email
    Taylor’s book that has received national prizes.
    Share
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Email

    NASHVILLE, TN — The annual Path to Freedom Lecture at Fort Negley Park this year will focus on the African Americans who escaped slavery during the Civil War, sought refuge inside Union lines, and managed to survive. Fort Negley represented the first extensive use of newly freed blacks in Tennessee, in the Federal war effort, and its success influenced the later creation of contraband labor camps in other Tennessee towns.

    Civil War Historian Amy Murrell Taylor found that these camps multiplied quickly across the wartime landscape, and by 1865 nearly 300 settlements stretched from the coast of Virginia to Kansas, from Missouri down to New Orleans.

    Taylor has received multiple national prizes for her book, Embattled Freedom: Journeys Through the Civil War’s Slave Refugee Camps (UNC Press, 2018), including the Civil War and Reconstruction Prize from the Organization of American Historians and the Frederick Douglass Prize given by the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University. She is the T. Marshall Hahn Jr. Professor of History at the University of Kentucky and president-elect of the Society of Civil War Historians.

    Taylor said most of her research about the freedom-seekers in the camps came from depositions and petitions in federal Army records; however, she also found useful the records of the American Missionary Association, as well as journals and newspapers that emerged during the war to report on daily life in the camps and appeal for Northern assistance. Such journals and newspapers included titles such as the Freedman’s Bulletin, The Freedman’s Friend, and the National Freedman.

    “It was not uncommon to hear observers refer to the movement of these former slaves as a ‘stampede,’ a ‘flood,’ or a ‘rising tide,’” Taylor writes in Embattled Freedom. “Newspaper articles, government reports, and even captions to illustrations of the wartime flight told of ‘swarms’ that appeared at army camps, and of freedom seekers who ‘circulated much like water’ and ‘rolled like eddies around military posts.’” She quotes W.E.B. Du Bois, writing in the early 20th century (Black Reconstruction), saying this wartime movement was a “great unbroken swell of the ocean.”

    Civil War Historian
    Amy Murrell Taylor

    Nearly 500,000 refugees walked away from the farms and plantations of their enslavement, in search of refuge behind the lines of the Union army throughout the Civil War, said Taylor. “They worked, worshipped, ate, slept, and endured disease, hunger, and assault inside the camps. They met soldiers from far Northern states, some of them helpful, some of them not; they encountered missionaries eager to teach them. They searched for and found family long separated or sometimes created new kinship ties.”

    As the camps multiplied, so too did an entirely new federal bureaucracy established to oversee and protect the residents within them. Never before had federal government agents intervened so directly to protect the interests of those in bondage – it marked, in fact, a reversal of the approach taken by other federal officials who had enforced the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act, laying the groundwork, in effect, for the more well-known Freedmen’s Bureau that emerged by the war’s end.

    The story of this monumental exodus from slavery remains relatively unknown among Civil War enthusiasts and historians. Embattled Freedom began as an act of recovery, with a goal of reconstructing, from the military records, newspapers, and missionary reports, the way refugee camps looked and were experienced by those who lived there.

    Fort Negley’s annual Path to Freedom Lecture is presented by Metro Parks and Friends of Fort Negley Park. The lecture takes place at the Fort Negley Visitors Center, 1100 Fort Negley Blvd., Nashville, TN 37203. Space is limited and attendees are encouraged to secure their tickets early. Tickets can be purchased by visiting the Fort Negley Eventbrite page.

    Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email
    admin

    Related Posts

    Boyce made history as one of the Clinton 12

    September 4, 2025

    WeGo Seeks Public Input on Winter 2026 Service Changes and New Free Fare Program

    September 2, 2025

    The F.I.N.D. Design Marks New Chapter: Expands with AI Innovation and New Leadership

    September 2, 2025

    Nashville State, VUMC Partnership Continues to Fast-Track Surgical Support Careers

    September 2, 2025

    Metropolitan Nashville Sports Authority Announces GEODIS Park Receives Prestigious International Architecture Award® 2025

    August 29, 2025

    Metro Council to Meet Thursday, October 9 Due to October 7 Special Primary Election

    August 29, 2025

    Comments are closed.

    Advertisement
    Business

    Sprouts Farmers Market Hosts Hiring Event Ahead of Mt. Juliet Opening

    August 28, 2025

    NBCC MINORITY BUSINESS OF THE WEEK: Flying Dress

    August 20, 2025

    Toon appointed new role at MMCV

    August 16, 2025
    1 2 3 … 386 Next
    Education
    Education

    MNPS hits milestone

    By adminSeptember 2, 2025

    NASHVILLE, TN — MNPS is celebrating a historic milestone: for the fourth year in a…

    Belmont’s Massey College of Business Awards $10,000 Scholarships to All 2025 NELAS Winners

    September 1, 2025

    TSU President Tucker Appoints Three New Leaders to Advance Transformational Change Agenda

    August 28, 2025

    Meharry Medical College Serves More Than 450 Dental Patients at Biannual Oral Health Day

    August 28, 2025
    The Tennessee Tribune
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram
    • About Us
    • Digital Subscription
    • Store
    • Advertise With Us
    • Contact
    © 2025 The Tennessee Tribune - Site Designed by No Regret Media.

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.

    Our Spring Sale Has Started

    You can see how this popup was set up in our step-by-step guide: https://wppopupmaker.com/guides/auto-opening-announcement-popups/