Covers a range of topics – families, school, churches, community organizations, politics – that reflect the range of means by which African Americans sought to build or restore lives for themselves following the collapse of slavery. A valuable contribution that fills a conspicuous gap.

Skillfully weaving personal stories of Virginia’s free Black people, this work showcases the intersections of gender, racial ambiguity, ambition, and a myriad of other realities before and after Emancipation. This compelling and well-researched work challenges conventional wisdom by providing a clearer understanding of how these men and women navigated their worlds with varying degrees of success.

The volume successfully integrates field-defining scholarship in the historiographies of slavery and emancipation, the Civil War and Reconstruction, and the Jim Crow era—expanding our understanding of the process of emancipation and the people who fortified Black institutions in rural and urban communities throughout the state. A major strength of this study is the authors' impressive weaving together of countless life stories, drawn from the Library of Virginia's Dictionary of Virginia Biography, into a coherent narrative organized in eight thematic chapters. Individual stories animate insights alongside a robust engagement with the secondary literature on Black political life in Virginia, making this volume both a thematic study and a collective biography.

Justice for Ourselves provides a sound analysis of how African Americans navigated the end of slavery and sought to redefine freedom in its wake. Deal, Julienne, and Tarter offer up biographies that make the events more memorable and shed light on individuals' actions. These biographies ensure that Justice for Ourselves will be especially useful for those looking to appreciate the political activism of Black Virginians and activists' unique perspectives on historicized yet not always so handsomely detailed.

This outstanding volume does more than recount obstacles Black people, regardless of status, encountered. The book reveals how Black people contested barriers and navigated a complex world . . . Deeply researched and smartly written, this is a noteworthy volume that deserves much acclaim and warrants little criticism. Those interested in a deeper understanding of the complexities of life for Black people during the Civil War era and how Black people responded to those challenges during our nation’s defining moment will find this study essential.