“Freedom Was in Sight is a revelation. Kate Masur’s exceptional scholarship combined with Liz Clarke’s virtuosic illustrations bring the history of Reconstruction to life with color, texture, and humanity. Never has Reconstruction been rendered in such a dynamic way. No longer is the history an abstraction. Here it leaps from the page. It breathes. It speaks. It haunts. It quakes. I can’t stop thinking about this book.”

—Clint Smith, author of How the Word Is Passed

This event is part of Hill Center’s annual Benjamin Drummond series

Freedom Was in Sight! A Graphic History of Reconstruction in the Washington, D.C., Region was commissioned through a partnership with the National Park Service and the Organization of American Historians, the leading professional organization for U.S. history.

Over the course of nearly two hundred pages of full-color, original illustrations, historian Kate Masur and illustrator Liz Clarke draw on the words and experiences of people who lived during Reconstruction to powerfully show how the Civil War and emancipation transformed the United States, with impacts rippling outward for decades.

Narrated by Emma V. Brown, the first African American teacher in Washington’s public schools, the book places Black Americans at the center of this history. Famous individuals such as Frederick Douglass and Ida B. Wells appear in the book, as do lesser-known figures like Helen Appo Cook, a leading organizer of women who spoke out against the racism of the white-led women’s suffrage movement, and lawyer-journalist William Calvin Chase, longtime editor of the Washington Bee.

Freedom Was in Sight! reveals the hopes and betrayals of a critical period in American history, and corrects misconceptions about the Reconstruction era and highlights the often-overlooked experiences of Black Americans who mobilized for freedom and equality and sounded the alarm as agents of white supremacy consolidated power. Amid the intense national debate about how to teach the history of enslavement and race in the US, Masur offers a compelling, masterful account of the period, explicitly addressing racial violence while also foregrounding stories of Black Americans who met the moment with humanity and cultivated hope for the future.

“Here in vivid visuals, a tight narrative, and rich context, Masur and Clarke give readers an experience they will not forget…I can only wish I’d had this kind of powerful history of Reconstruction in my youth. This tale of America’s second founding in the capital city as thousands of freedmen found new homes and lives is withering, visually stunning, and good history all at once.” —David W. Blight, author of Pulitzer Prize–winning Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom. 

Kate Masur is a professor at Northwestern University who specializes in the history of race, politics, and law in the United States. She’s the author of Until Justice Be Done: America’s First Civil Rights Movement, from the Revolution to Reconstruction, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History and a New York Times “critics’ pick” for 2021. Kate led a team of students and staff at Northwestern in the creation of Black Organizing in Pre-Civil War Illinois: Creating Community, Demanding Justice, a web exhibit associated with the Colored Conventions Project.

She regularly collaborates with museums and other nonprofits, including the National Park Service, the National Constitution Center, the Newberry Library, and the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture. She was a key consultant for the 2019 documentary, Reconstruction: America after the Civil War and appeared in the 2021 CNN film, Lincoln: Divided We Stand.

Books will be available for sale, and a book signing will follow the conversation.

Benjamin Drummond Emancipation Day Celebration

Now in its 9th year, Hill Center’s Benjamin Drummond series honors America’s first liberated enslaved people with scholarly and celebratory programs that bring together a diverse group of prominent experts, artists, and public figures throughout the year to explore the Civil War and its long aftermath from the African American perspective. Named for the Old Naval Hospital’s first patient, a young African American seaman taken prisoner by Confederated ships, Benjamin Drummond Emancipation Day Celebration marks 162 years since President Abraham Lincoln signed The District of Columbia Emancipation Act, also known as The DC Compensated Emancipation Act, nearly nine months before the Emancipation Proclamation.