Class War in the Confederacy
Why Free State of Jones Matters
Johnson, Cedric
http://nonsite.org/editorial/class-war-in-the-confederacy
Date Written: 2016-10-11
Year Published: 2016
Resource Type: Article
Cx Number: CX19949
Free State of Jones may well be the most politically important film about the civil war and its aftermath to appear in a quarter century. Free State of Jones is a proper antidote to identitarian thinking, which has mystified popular understandings of the past, and how we approach political action in the present. In contrast to the prevailing view among so many nowadays that racism has always been and continues to be the main barrier to any progressive left politics, this film reminds us of a more complex history, where anti-slavery politics, Radical Republicanism and mass action created the short-lived progress of Reconstruction.
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