Illuminating the Whole American Idea
Introducing “Inheritance”
This article was published online on February 9, 2021.
In 1862, an abolitionist from Philadelphia named Charlotte Forten decided to go south to the Sea Islands of South Carolina. She was taking up an important mission: teaching Black children, newly liberated by the Union Army, how to read. Two years later, she would describe for readers of The Atlantic the exhilaration she felt as she traveled to her post.
“We thought how easy it would be for a band of guerrillas, had, “but we were in that excited, jubilant state of mind which makes fear impossible, and sang ‘John Brown’ with a will, as we drove through the pines and palmettos. Oh, it was good to sing that song in the very heart of Rebeldom!”
