Reconstruction

• 
• SOURCE: Letters from an American
  2/23/20
  

  Has America Ever Been in Such a Crisis Before? Yes, Three Times

  by Heather Cox Richardson

  A lot of folks have been asking me lately if America has ever been in such a crisis before and, if so, what people in the past did to save democracy. The answer to the first question is yes, it has, three times.

• 
• 2/23/20
  

  Commemorating the 150th Anniversary of the 15th Amendment

  by Alan Singer

  February 2020 is the 150th anniversary of the 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution declaring “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

• 
• SOURCE: NY Times
  2/14/20
  

  There Have Been 10 Black Senators Since Emancipation

  by Eric Foner

  Elected 150 years ago, Hiram Revels was the first.

• 
• SOURCE: NY Times
  2/15/20
  

  The Equality That Wasn’t Enough

  by Jamelle Bouie

  The most radical Radical Republicans had a better idea of how to cast the 15th Amendment. We should have listened to them.

• 
• 2/2/20
  

  How the South Dominated American Education

  by John Heffron

  An excerpt from John Heffron's The Rise of the South in American Thought and Education: The Rockefeller Years (1902-1917). 

• 
• SOURCE: The Conversation
  1/3/20
  

  What everyone should know about Reconstruction 150 years after the 15th Amendment’s ratification

  by Tiffany Mitchell Patterson

  Here are some suggestions for educators and others interested in learning more about that time period.

• 
• 12/29/19
  

  Confederate Monuments in National Perspective

  by Thomas J. Brown

  Northern monuments established a foundation for the argument that Confederate military service deserves recognition although rendered in a deplorable cause.

• 
• SOURCE: The Nation
  December 1, 2019
  

  Michael Kazin Reviews Eric Foner's Latest Book, The Second Founding

  by Michael Kazin

  Eric Foner’s story of American freedom, The Second Founding, sheds new light on how the Civil War and Reconstruction influenced the Constitution.

• 
• SOURCE: NY Times
  9/18/19
  

  What Reconstruction-Era Laws Can Teach Our Democracy: The NY Times Reviews Eric Foner's Latest Book

  by Lincoln Caplan

  “The Second Founding” reflects Foner’s rigorously researched, now mainstream view that Reconstruction was “a massive experiment in interracial democracy."

• 
• SOURCE: NY Times
  9/7/19
  

  The Lost Promise of Reconstruction

  by Eric Foner

  Can we reanimate the dream of freedom that Congress tried to enact in the wake of the Civil War?

• 
• 9/8/19
  

  The American Left Needs a Contemporary Thad Stevens

  by Van Gosse

  Protest, “resistance,” and speaking truth to power are no longer enough. Leftists need to think about how to wield power in our complex political system and Thad Stevens offers a valuable blueprint. 

• 
• SOURCE: NPR
  4/19/19
  

  From Reconstruction To WWII, How The U.S. Census Has Been Used For Both Good And Bad

  "We're seeing something that has a very dangerous kind of echo to other less progressive approaches to using the census."

• 
• SOURCE: NY Times
  4/16/19
  

  When Slaveowners Got Reparations

  by Tera W. Hunter

  Lincoln signed a bill in 1862 that paid up to $300 for every enslaved person freed.

• 
• SOURCE: UCONN
  Accessed 4/17/19
  

  Livestream event: The Greater Reconstruction: American Democracy after the Civil War

  Details about the conference and livestream. 

• 
• 4/14/19
  

  Ilhan Omar is a Reconstruction Reformer

  by William Horne

  The failure to hold the race-baiting press, politicians, and vigilantes responsible during Reconstruction undermined any semblance of equality for more than 100 years. We can't make the same mistake. 

• 
• SOURCE: PBS
  3/29/19
  

  Video of the Week: inside look at PBS's Reconstruction: America After the Civil War

  See how our past affects our present with this inside look of Reconstruction with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Reconstruction: America After the Civil War.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  4/5/19
  

  Stony the Road: From black triumph to racial hysteria to the ‘new Negro’

  by Howell Raines

  An illuminating ook review of Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s  “Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow.”

• 
• SOURCE: Time
  4/2/19
  

  How Reconstruction Still Shapes American Racism

  by Henry Lewis Gates, Jr.

  Regardless of its brevity, Reconstruction remains one of the most pivotal eras in the history of race relations in American history —­ and probably the most misunderstood.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Magazine
  3/21/19
  

  Democrats’ Voting-Rights Push Could Begin a Third Reconstruction

  by Ed Kilgore

  As in the Reconstruction era after the Civil War, one party is committed to the use of federal power to vindicate voting rights, and the other is opposed.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  3/4/19
  

  Grant’s First Tomb

  by Jamelle Bouie

  Ulysses S. Grant, inaugurated as president 150 years ago today, missed a chance to reconstruct the South economically as well as politically.