Imperfect Equality: African Americans and the Confines of White Radical Attitudes in Post-Emancipation Maryland

Imperfect Equality: African Americans and the Confines of White Racial Attitudes in PostEmancipation Maryland. By Richard Paul Fuke. (New York: Fordham University Press, 1999. xxviii, 307 pp. Cloth, $39.95, ISBN 0-82321962-3. Paper, $19.95, ISBN 0-8232-1963-1.)

For more than four decades, historians have chronicled the history of the transition from slavery to freedom. But Richard Paul Fuke's Imperfect Equality is the first history of a loyal state. Without the benefit of congressional control, black Marylanders, even with help from sympathetic whites, faced insurmountable obstacles. Moderate Republicans held brief political control from 1864 to 1866; afterward, conservative Democrats gained and retained a large majority. And because Maryland had remained in the Union and had emancipated its own slaves, Congress refused to intervene. Civil courts maintained jurisdiction, and the Freedmen's Bureau had only minimal influence. Moreover, Maryland whites had long...