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A brief moment in the sun : Francis Cardozo and Reconstruction in South Carolina

Title: A brief moment in the sun : Francis Cardozo and Reconstruction in South Carolina / Neil Kinghan.
Author: Kinghan, Neil
Publication: Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University Press, [2023]

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schomburg Center to submit a request in person.	Text	Use in library	Sc E 23-638	Schomburg Center - Research & Reference

Details

Description

xiii, 255 pages : illustrations; 24 cm.

Summary

"A Brief Moment in the Sun is the first scholarly biography of Francis Lewis Cardozo, one of the most talented and influential African Americans to hold elected office in the South between Reconstruction and the civil rights era. Born to a formerly enslaved African American mother and white Jewish father in antebellum South Carolina, Cardozo led a life of extraordinary achievement as a pioneering educator, politician, and government official. However, today he is largely unknown in South Carolina and among students of nineteenth-century American history. Immediately after the Civil War, Cardozo succeeded in creating and leading a successful school for formerly enslaved children in the face of widespread racial hostility. Between 1868 and 1877, voters elected him secretary of state and state treasurer. In the Republican administrations that controlled the state during Reconstruction, Cardozo was a famously honest officeholder when many of his colleagues were notoriously corrupt. He played a major part in securing a viable educational system for Black and white children and land reform for thousands of landless families. Cardozo proved that Black men could govern at least as well as white. As a result, he became the target of white supremacist Democratic politicians after they reclaimed power through a campaign of violence and intimidation. They prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned Cardozo on a fabricated fraud charge. Pardoned in 1879, Cardozo moved to Washington DC, where he led an even more successful school for African American children. Neil Kinghan's Brief Moment in the Sun is the first complete historical analysis of Francis Cardozo and his contribution to Reconstruction and African American history. It draws on original research on Cardozo's early life and education in Scotland and England and pulls together for the first time the extant sources on his experiences in South Carolina and Washington, DC. Kinghan reveals all that Cardozo achieved as a Black educator and political leader and explores what else he might have realized if white racism and violence had not ended his efforts in South Carolina. Above all, Kinghan shows that Francis Cardozo deserves a place of honor and distinction in the history of nineteenth-century America"--

Series Statement

Southern biography series

Subject

Genre/Form

Biographies.
History.

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

Cardozo's Black Atlantic: Charleston, Glasgow, and New Haven -- Return to South Carolina: Education and Racism -- Political Transformation: Radical Reconstruction in South Carolina, 1867-1868 -- Cardozo, Scott, and Moses, 1868-1874: Reconstruction in Government, Part 1 -- Cardozo and Chamberlain, 1874-1877: Reconstruction in Government, Part 2 -- After Reconstruction: Cardozo in South Carolina and Washington.

Call Number

Sc E 23-638

ISBN

9780807178997
0807178993
9780807179864 (canceled/invalid)
9780807179857 (canceled/invalid)

LCCN

2022042819

OCLC

1348923652

Author

Kinghan, Neil, author.

Title

A brief moment in the sun : Francis Cardozo and Reconstruction in South Carolina / Neil Kinghan.

Publisher

Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University Press, [2023]

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

Southern biography series

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Note

Schomburg copy with dust jacket.

Chronological Term

1865-1877

Research Call Number

Sc E 23-638

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