Builders of Freedom:: African American Political Leadership in Nassau County, 1867–1902 Paperback – December 31, 2025

Book DescriptionBuilders of Freedom is a powerful, meticulously researched history of African American civic leadership in Nassau County, Florida, during and after Reconstruction—restoring to the historical record the men whose contributions were deliberately erased by Jim Crow and long-standing historical neglect.Drawing on primary sources, archival records, court documents, newspapers, and fraternal proceedings, historian Jerry Urso uncovers a forgotten world of Black political, legal, and institutional power. In Nassau County, African American leaders did not merely survive the post–Civil War era—they governed. They served as lawmakers, judges, law-enforcement officers, city officials, businessmen, and community builders who shaped local government at its most critical moment.Figures such as Abraham Lincoln Lewis, Thomas Sterling Delany, John H. Stays, and Samuel Petty emerge not as footnotes, but as central actors in the creation of Black civic life. These men enforced the law, interpreted it, wrote it—and, when justice demanded, challenged unjust laws to protect their communities.As Reconstruction collapsed following the Compromise of 1877, Black political officeholding in Nassau County was systematically dismantled through voter suppression, intimidation, and racial violence. Yet leadership did not disappear. Builders of Freedom traces how Black pioneers adapted, shifting from public office into economic, fraternal, and institutional power. Leaders like Abraham Lincoln Lewis transformed segregation into a framework for self-determination, building businesses, land developments, insurance systems, and parallel institutions that endured beyond political exclusion.This book is more than a local history. It is a restoration of memory and meaning—reclaiming the men who laid the civic foundations of Nassau County and demonstrating how African Americans built law, order, and opportunity in the face of betrayal.Essential reading for scholars, educators, genealogists, Prince Hall Masons, and anyone seeking a deeper understanding of Reconstruction, Black political leadership, and the enduring struggle for justice in America. Read more