I Saw Death Coming: A History of Terror and Survival in the War Against Reconstruction

"Powerful and deeply moving."--Los Angeles Times * Shortlisted for the Museum of African American History's Stone Book Award

From a groundbreaking scholar, a heart-wrenching reexamination of the struggle for survival in the Reconstruction-era South, and what it cost.

The story of Reconstruction is often told from the perspective of the politicians, generals, and journalists whose accounts claim an outsized place in collective memory. But this pivotal era looked very different to African Americans in the South transitioning from bondage to freedom after 1865. They were besieged by a campaign of white supremacist violence that persisted through the 1880s and beyond. For too long, their lived experiences have been sidelined, impoverishing our understanding of the obstacles post-Civil War Black families faced, their inspiring determination to survive, and the physical and emotional scars they bore because of it.

In I Saw Death Coming, Kidada E. Williams offers a breakthrough account of the much-debated Reconstruction period, transporting readers into the daily existence of formerly enslaved people building hope-filled new lives. Drawing on overlooked sources and bold new readings of the archives, Williams offers a revelatory and, in some cases, minute-by-minute record of nighttime raids and Ku Klux Klan strikes. And she deploys cutting-edge scholarship on trauma to consider how the effects of these attacks would linger for decades--indeed, generations--to come.

For readers of Carol Anderson, Tiya Miles, and Clint Smith, I Saw Death Coming is an indelible and essential book that speaks to some of the most pressing questions of our times.

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 01/17/2023
Pages: 384
Weight: 1.46lbs
Size: 9.59h x 6.38w x 1.31d
ISBN: 9781635576634


Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 10/24/2022
Kirkus Reviews 12/01/2022
Library Journal 01/01/2023 pg. 96
BookPage 02/01/2023

About the Author
Kidada E. Williams is Associate Professor of History at Wayne State University. She is the author of They Left Great Marks on Me, coauthor of Charleston Syllabus, and creator of the podcast Seizing Freedom. Williams has been interviewed on NPR's Morning Edition and On Point, and her essays have appeared in the New York Times, Slate, and multiple scholarly journals. She lives in Detroit