"White Man's Country"

“White Man’s Country” Sunday, July 21, 2013 By Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman The false sobriquet "white man's country" was applied to the United States until the end of the Civil War, which was originally heralded as a "white man's war". These characterizations were used to disallow blacks from fighting in their "Freedom War," as they referred to this conflict among themselves, confident that somehow The Lord would make a way! A way was made, when three slaves, working on Confederate artillery embankments opposite Ft. Monroe on the Virginia peninsula which was still under Union command, rowed across the bay and became "contraband of war." Other slaves rushed to join the Union Army, whenever it came nearby, word having reached them that “contraband” status awaited them too, if they could get to the Stars and Stripes A rivulet soon became a mighty flood, depriving the South of its labor force and assets and overwhelming the Union with a flood of humanity that it could barely feed, and in tens of thousands of cases, at least, it did not feed, leading to death by starvation and disease. Yet, the majority survived and thrived, leading 2 department commanders to issue their own Emancipation Proclamations: Generals Hunter and Fremont in 1861. Lincoln rescinded these, only to issue his own in September 1862. The Union was in danger of losing the war. Lincoln’s political overtures to the South for gradual emancipation and payment for slaves had been rebuffed. His black colonization schemes had failed both on Ile de Vache in Haiti, and in Central America, as black leaders said “No!” So, on January 1, 1863, Lincoln’s Proclamation took effect, freeing black men to fight for freedom against their former masters and tormentors. These 200,000 soldiers and sailors won the war for the Union, and converted this former “white man’s country” into the “land of the free and the home of the brave!”