False Promises: The Struggle for Black Voting Rights in 1800s Ohio

Brings to life the struggle for Black suffrage in nineteenth-century Ohio In False Promises, the fight for Black voting rights in Ohio comes alive through narratives of men of color who defied the state’s nineteenth-century restrictions on suffrage.Though ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment ostensibly extended the franchise, state election laws still forced men of color into a perilous struggle for full citizenship.Ric S. Sheffield depicts their courage and determination, revealing their humanity through stories of sacrifice, resistance, and hope. Drawing on Saidiya Hartman’s concept of critical fabulation, Sheffield weaves together historical records with imaginative reconstructions of dialogue, setting, and descriptive elements beyond the dusty courthouse pages.Grounded in archival evidence yet reimagined to fill in the silences, these stories recount the lived experiences of those who risked everything to exercise their right to vote. False Promises also connects these historica