The Right to Childhood and the Process of Emancipation in the American Civil War.

The article examines how African American and white children, especially in the South, acted on, experienced, shaped and disagreed with ideas of freedom by struggling over the right to their own childhoods during the American Civil War. It describes the significance of the actions of Black and white children in the fight for or against emancipation. It discusses the influence of reading experiences on the children's views in the South about the possible meanings of a right to childhood.