The authors describe the events of January 12, 1865, in Savannah, Georgia, shortly after its capture by Union forces, when General William T. Sherman and Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton met with 20 Black community leaders, mainly Baptist and Methodist ministers. Among them were future Reconstruction leaders like Ulysses S. Houston and James D. Lynch. The group discussed their views on freedom and what it entailed—defining it as the ability to benefit from one’s own labor and emphasizing the importance of land ownership as a means to achieve economic independence and sustain freedom.

The authors detail how Garrison Frazier, acting as the group’s spokesperson, articulated that enslavement was the forceful extraction of one’s labor without consent, and freedom was the opportunity to manage one’s own work and benefit from it. He stressed that with land to cultivate, Black individuals could support themselves and enjoy equal protection under the law.

This meeting anticipated significant changes that would unfold during the Reconstruction era, a time focused on redefining American freedom and expanding citizenship rights to include Black Americans. This period saw the rewriting of laws and the Constitution to recognize African Americans as citizens and ensure their equality before the law.