The Power of an Image: Emancipation, Black Agency, and the Susceptibility of Collective Memory

• In Event: Media, Imagery, and History Education

Abstract

This paper reports the findings from a mixed-method study (N=3,481) that explores the collective memories of Emancipation. The study was conducted at a large public research university located in a former Confederate state. The sample includes students, staff, and faculty. Participants were randomly assigned one of two versions of the questionnaire. One version begins with a paternalistic image of Lincoln emancipating a slave. The other version begins with an image of an African American soldier battling a Confederate soldier. The paper explores the extent to which these images affect responses to the questionnaire, the extent to African American agency is part of the collective memory of Emancipation, and differences between how demographic groups remember the Civil War and Emancipation.

Authors

• Gabriel Aaron Reich, Virginia Commonwealth University

• Amy Corning, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor