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1. George Washington Williams, who died #otd in 1891, was a trail-blazing historian.
He wrote a 2-volume History of the Negro Race in America (1882-3) & The History of the Negro Troops in the War of the Rebellion (1888). He planned but never published a history of Reconstruction
He wrote a 2-volume History of the Negro Race in America (1882-3) & The History of the Negro Troops in the War of the Rebellion (1888). He planned but never published a history of Reconstruction
2. “I have tracked my bleeding countrymen,” Williams wrote, “through the widely scattered documents of American history; I have listened to their groans, their clanking chains, and melting prayers, until the woes of a race and the agonies of centuries seem to crowd upon my soul."
3. Williams saw slavery as a national institution that tainted the Constitution, implicated the federal government, and defied efforts to localize its influence: “an attempt to confine a deadly cancer to a particular part of the body politic was defective statesmanship.”
4. Born in Pennsylvania in 1849, Williams enlisted in the Union army at age 14. He was later ordained a Baptist minister and trained as a lawyer. In 1879 he won election to Ohio’s legislature—its 1st African American member.
5. Williams was also a critic of European colonialism in Africa. He traveled to the Congo in 1890 and wrote publicly of the “deceit, fraud, robberies, arson, murder, slave-raiding, and general policy of cruelty” of Belgian colonizers.
6. Williams died in England, where he was researching a book on colonialism in Africa.
Thirty years later, W. E. B. Du Bois called Williams “the greatest historian of the race.” /end
Thirty years later, W. E. B. Du Bois called Williams “the greatest historian of the race.” /end
