James Milton Turner and the Promise of America The Public Life of a Post-Civil War Black Leader |
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| Author:
| Kremer, Gary R. |
| Series title: | Missouri Biography Ser. |
| ISBN: | 978-0-8262-0780-7 |
| Publication Date: | Jun 1991 |
| Publisher: | University of Missouri Press
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| Book Format: | Hardback |
| List Price: | USD $50.00USD $50.00 |
Book Description:
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James Milton Turner, Missouri's most prominent nineteenth-century African American political figure, possessed a deep faith in America. The Civil War, he believed, had purged the land of its sins and allowed the country to realize what had always been its promise: the creation of a social and political environment in which merit, not race, mattered. Born a slave, Turner gained freedom when he was a child and received his education in clandestine St....
More DescriptionJames Milton Turner, Missouri's most prominent nineteenth-century African American political figure, possessed a deep faith in America. The Civil War, he believed, had purged the land of its sins and allowed the country to realize what had always been its promise: the creation of a social and political environment in which merit, not race, mattered.
Born a slave, Turner gained freedom when he was a child and received his education in clandestine St. Louis schools, later briefly attending Oberlin College. A self-taught lawyer, Turner earned a statewide reputation and wielded power far out of proportion to Missouri's relatively small black population.
After working nearly a decade in Liberia, Turner never regained the prominence he had enjoyed during Reconstruction.