Title
Interpretations of Tunis Campbell
Creator
E. Merton Coulter; Michael Perman; Stephen Hahn
Description
Tunis Campbell, a northern black man, moved to the South during Reconstruction. He became an important political leader in Georgia. These excerpts from secondary sources present contrasting interpretations of Campbell’s goals and strategies.
Source
E. Merton Coulter, “Tunis G. Campbell, Negro Reconstructionist in Georgia,” Georgia Historical Quarterly 51, no. 4 (December 1967): 401-406; Michael Perman, Emancipation and Reconstruction, 2nd ed. (Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davidson, 2003), 82-84; Steven Hahn, A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), 239-241.
Date
1967, 2003, 2005
Questions
- How do scholars’ understandings of blacks’ goals diverge or converge?
- What were the different assessments of Campbell’s Reconstruction activities? How do these assessments of Campbell fit within scholars’ analysis of black strategies during Reconstruction? What do you see as the advantages and/or disadvantages of these different strategies?
- What evidence did the authors offer to support their interpretations? Which interpretations (if any) do you find most compelling?