Tennessee during Reconstruction

Tennessee became the first former Confederate state readmitted to the Union, but emancipation did not end the struggle over labour, citizenship and political power. Freedpeople established households, churches, schools and businesses while seeking legal protection and meaningful participation in public life.

White resistance included intimidation, murder and organised violence directed at Black communities and their allies. Local courts and officials frequently failed to protect freedpeople or punish attackers, making the pursuit of justice inseparable from the broader reconstruction of state authority.

This context supports fiction about formerly enslaved people, Black professionals, midwives, political activism and racial violence in postwar Tennessee. The Orphan Mother uses Franklin as a setting for a bereaved woman’s search for the truth about her son’s death.