Direct observation of freedpeople contradicted the racist brute theory

Evidence

The AFIC reports were the most popular works to appear amid the sudden rush of emancipation literature about the future of Black people. Observations noting that slavery had not turned Blacks into brutes had a home in the post-emancipation reports, for anyone willing to wade through all of the racist testimonies to reach them. Before supervising the contrabands of Virginia, one Union Army captain, C. B. Wilder, admitted, “I did not think [Black people] had so much brain.” His experiences had taught him that “they have got as many brains as you or I have, though they have an odd way of showing it.” At the end of 1864, 78 percent of the contrabands under Wilder’s supervision were “independent of assistance.” — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 610