Searching for Black Confederates by Kevin M. Levin | Official Trailer

More than 150 years after the end of the Civil War, scores of websites, articles, and organizations repeat claims that anywhere between 500 and 100,000 free and enslaved African Americans fought willingly as soldiers in the Confederate army. But as Kevin M. Levin argues in this carefully researched book, such claims would have shocked anyone who served in the army during the war itself. Levin explains that imprecise contemporary accounts, poorly understood primary-source material, and other misrepresentations helped fuel the rise of the black Confederate myth. Moreover, Levin shows that belief in the existence of black Confederate soldiers largely originated in the 1970s, a period that witnessed both a significant shift in how Americans remembered the Civil War and a rising backlash against African Americans’ gains in civil rights and other realms.

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Book Details

UNC Press Publicity Contact for Review Copies/Author Interviews:
Regina Mahalek, Director of Publicity, UNC Press 919-962-0581 mahalek@unc.edu

Video:
Multimedia Producer/Editor – Ken Wyatt