Freedom Road by Howard Fast
"Freedom Road" by Howard Fast is a historical novel set in the aftermath of the Civil War, exploring the struggles for equality and justice during the Reconstruction era in the South. The narrative centers around Gideon Jackson, a leader who emerges from the impoverished community of Carwell, consisting of both Black citizens and poor white individuals. Faced with systemic oppression and the remnants of a defeated plantation economy, Gideon advocates for education and civil rights, rallying his community to participate in the Constitutional Convention in South Carolina. The story highlights their efforts to draft a constitution that aims to foster equality and cooperation between races.
As the narrative unfolds, Gideon successfully organizes the community to purchase the Carwell Plantation, symbolizing a significant step towards autonomy and communal learning. However, the optimistic progress is threatened by the rise of violent opposition, particularly from groups like the Ku Klux Klan, which disrupts the potential for peaceful integration. Fast's novel not only recounts a lesser-known chapter of American history but also emphasizes the importance of recognizing the aspirations and struggles for civil rights during Reconstruction. It serves as a poignant reminder of the ongoing quest for equality and the historical forces that have shaped contemporary society.
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Freedom Road by Howard Fast
First published: 1944
Type of work: Historical fiction
Themes: Education, emotions, family, friendship, politics and law, race and ethnicity, and death
Time of work: 1865-1875
Recommended Ages: 15-18
Locale: South Carolina
Principal Characters:
Gideon Jackson , a former slave who educates himself and leads his peopleRachel Jackson , his much-loved wifeJeff , their oldest son, who goes to Scotland to study medicine because he cannot do so in the United StatesMarcus , their youngest son, who is very much like GideonAbner Lait , a poor white farmer who joins the fight for land and dignityFrancis L. Cardozo , a free Negro who helps GideonStephen Holm , a former slave owner and the founder of the Ku Klux KlanBrother Peter , a Negro preacher at Carwell Plantation
The Story
White Southerners expected to win the Civil War and maintain their way of life. Even after defeat, when huge plantations like Carwell are lost because of back taxes and a lack of laborers, the powerful whites seek to regain control by means of special laws. With the formation of the Constitutional Convention in South Carolina, however, when wealthy white men shun the lawmaking process because they see no way they can sit with ignorant blacks and poor whites to negotiate, Gideon Jackson rises to prominence. He leads the Negro men and poor white men of Carwell to walk the one hundred miles to Charleston to vote, and they elect him delegate.
Of 124 delegates, 76 are Negro, and they know that education is the key to transforming their lives. Gideon says,
What I want from Constitution? Maybe it ain’t what you folks want—want learning, want it for all, black and white. Want a freedom that’s sure as an iron fencepost. Want no man should push me off the street. Want a little farm where a nigger can put in a crop and take out a crop all his days. That’s what I want.
In spite of all opposition, they write such a constitution, but putting it into effect is another matter. Gideon makes influential friends in Charleston and, later, in Washington, D.C., when he goes to Congress. When the Carwell Plantation is to be auctioned for back taxes, he forms a union of the Negroes and poor whites who have lived there for years, goes to New York, and borrows money to buy nearly three thousand acres (no banker in South Carolina will talk to him).
Though his wife, Rachel, knows that all their lives depend upon Gideon and his ability to learn and lead, she is also aware each time he leaves for Charleston or for Washington that he will be different when he returns to her. She is torn between pride in his leadership and fear that their closeness will suffer. She and Marcus, the youngest son, are an integral part of the Carwell community, along with Brother Peter, who reads Gideon’s letters to them.
The land is divided among families, they hire a schoolteacher, and black and white children learn together. Gideon’s oldest son, Jeff, is determined to become a doctor. With the help of friends of Gideon in Charleston and Chicago, Jeff is sent to Scotland to study medicine. Soon after his return to Carwell, however, eight years of relative peace and rebuilding of lives are interrupted by raids by the Ku Klux Klan. What might have been a peaceful integration of Southern society is postponed for more than half a century as political power falls into the hands of the rich. Carwell as a community ends in grief.
Context
Howard Fast has many books to his credit, books for all ages. Freedom Road added to his honors the Schomburg Award for Race Relations in 1944. His historical novels reveal the depth of his studies. In an afterword to Freedom Road he lists many sources of his information and explains why this story has not been told before:
Powerful forces did not hold it to be a good thing for the American people to know that once there had been such an experiment—and that the experiment had worked. That the Negro had been given the right to exist in this nation as a free man, a man who stood on equal ground with his neighbor, that he had been given the right to work out his own destiny in conjunction with the southern poor whites, and that in an eight-year period of working out that destiny he had created a fine, a just, and a truly democratic civilization.
The Reconstruction period of United States history receives little attention in textbooks, and that little gives very negative reports of occupation forces and those from the federal government who were interested in the rights of the blacks and the poor whites in the South. This book reminds young readers of the initial price paid for equality and the wrongs committed by the white supremacists. Each generation needs the reminder.