Journey of Hope: The Back-to-Africa Movement in Arkansas in the Late 1800s

by Kenneth C. Barnes

Liberia was founded by the American Colonization Society (ACS) in the 1820s as an African refuge for free blacks and liberated American slaves. While interest in African migration waned after the Civil War, it roared back in the late nineteenth century with the rise of Jim Crow segregation and disfranchisement throughout the South. The back-to-Africa movement held great new appeal to the South's most marginalized citizens, rural African Americans. Nowhere was this interest in Liberia emigration greater than in Arkansas. More emigrants to Liberia left from Arkansas than any other state in the 1880s and 1890s.

Genres: Africa, History

288 pages, Paperback

First published September 13, 2004

Reviews

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written and meticulously researched book about a topic I was completely unfamiliar with. In the late 1800’s Arkansas had both the most African American migrants to the state than any other and the most emigrants to Liberia than any other. Another important and heartbreaking documentation of the brutal realities of the Jim Crow south.

[Anne Lutomia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Barnes captures in detail the nuanced history of free blacks and liberated American slaves migrating to Liberia by specifically focusing on a group of sharecroppers from Arkansas.

[Cathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting and readable. Interesting and difficult period of Arkansas history.