Reconstruction

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  2/26/2021
  

  America’s Political Roots Are in Eutaw, Alabama

  "The terror campaign of 1870 ended the promise of Alabama’s brief Reconstruction era, allowing the so-called Redeemers to pry Alabama from the hands of reform. This was the critical juncture that led to the way things are."

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• SOURCE: Muster
  2/23/2021
  

  The Necessity of National Unity: Defeated Confederates’ International Appeals to Unity

  by Ann Tucker

  Defeated Confederate partisans found justification and support for national reunification without accountability by pointing selectively to the contentious politics of the European nationalist movement. 

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• SOURCE: Albany Times-Union
  2/20/2021
  

  Time to Stop the Whitewash

  by Joseph R. Fitzgerald

  If having a national, unifying narrative of history is necessary to hold civil society together, it can't be a story that erases inequality, conflict and struggle. 

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• 2/21/2021
  

  Don't Defend Democracy With Half-Truths About the Past

  by Brook Thomas

  Although the Capitol riots raised deep concern about the rule of law, there is a deeper challenge ahead of the nation: to understand and change the undemocratic aspects of our foundational law and refuse half-measures in the name of unity.

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  2/18/2021
  

  The 150-Year-Old Ku Klux Klan Act Being Used Against Trump In Capitol Attack

  Ulysses S. Grant championed legislation to apply the power of the federal government against armed conspiracies to prevent the exercise of the vote. A Mississippi Congressman is now suing Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani under a provision of the law that allows victims to file civil lawsuits against conspirators.

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• SOURCE: Mother Jones
  2/4/2021
  

  How to Teach History in a Community Still Reckoning With Its Past

  "For the African American community, it was still this large, looming scar, and the white community literally didn’t even know what had happened. It had just been erased. There was this disconnect in the community."

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• SOURCE: New York Review of Books
  2/3/2021
  

  The Case for a Third Reconstruction

  by Manisha Sinha

  During their brief hold on power, so-called "Radical Republicans" used their power to build multiracial democracy in the South and punish white supremacist terrorism. We face the same challenges today and must learn from and complete the work begun in Reconstruction and renewed by the modern Civil Rights movement.

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  1/30/2021
  

  Only Accountability Will Allow the U.S. to Move Forward

  by Mitch Landrieu

  Full accountability for the Capitol Riot is essential lest white supremacists and other extremists take the lesson that their actions are accepted and permitted. The white supremacist massacres of the post-Reconstruction period show that moving on without accountability is impossible. 

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• SOURCE: Mother Jones
  

  We’ve Had a White Supremacist Coup Before. History Buried It

  LeRae Sikes Umfleet's 2009 book explored the 1898 Wilmington insurrection and showed “how people could get murdered in the streets and no one held accountable for it.”

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• SOURCE: NPR
  1/15/2021
  

  Reconstruction Era Expert On Why Politicians Use Terms Unity And Healing

  "Reconciliation needs accountability. You can't just wash your hands and say, let's forget about the past and move forward with healing."

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• SOURCE: Slate
  1/14/2021
  

  Reconstruction Offers No Easy Answers for How to Handle the Trump Insurgency

  by Rebecca Onion

  It's tricky to draw any definitive lessons about how to deal with the Capitol insurgents from Reconstruction, particularly since many facile "lessons from history" make counterfactual assumptions. Historian Cynthia Nicoletti discusses the complex imperatives of justice, punishment, reconciliation, and national reunification that contributed to the course of Reconstruction.

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  1/10/2021
  

  The Attempted Insurrection was Only Part of the Right’s Anti-Democratic Playbook

  by Melissa DeVelvis and DJ Polite

  The overthrow of Reconstruction in South Carolina involved a symbiotic relationship between white political leaders and a loose coalition of armed white vigilante groups. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  11/12/2021
  

  Impeachment May Not Work. Here’s the Next Best Way to Dump Trump

  by Eric Foner

  The 14th Amendment empowers Congress to bar persons involved in insurrection against the United States from holding office. This can't remove Trump, but it can stop him (and anyone found to have plotted the Capitol rioting) from returning to office. 

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• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  1/13/2021
  

  Learning from the Failure of Reconstruction

  Isaac Chotiner interviews Eric Foner on the echoes of Reconstruction-era political violence in last week's Capitol riots. 

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• SOURCE: Reckon South
  1/12/2021
  

  Was the attack on Congress un-American? Yes and no, historians say

  Historians John Giggie and Manisha Sinha weigh in on how the Capitol riots do and don't reflect patterns of violence in American history. 

• 
• 1/10/2021
  

  Historical Rhetoric Resurfaced in Georgia's Runoff Election

  by Alicia K. Jackson

  Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock didn't just defeat their Republican opponents on January 5, they defeated a number of racist tropes that have characterized Georgia politics since Reconstruction. 

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• SOURCE: The Nation
  1/8/2020
  

  The Capitol Riot Reveals the Dangers From the Enemy Within

  by Eric Foner

  Let’s not assume that until the Capitol riot the United States was a well-functioning democracy.

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  1/8/2020
  

  1871 Provides a Road Map for Addressing the Pro-Trump Attempted Insurrection

  by Megan Kate Nelson

  "The actions that the federal government took in 1871 signaled its willingness to defend the constitutional rights of the nation’s citizens, Black and White, and to protect them against violence."

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• SOURCE: Democracy Now!
  1/7/2020
  

  Historian: White Terrorist Groups Attacked Democracy During Reconstruction, They Are Doing It Again

  Historian Manisha Sinha discusses the antecedents of Wednesday's mob invasion of the U.S. Capitol, incited by Donald Trump during the certification of the electoral college victory of Joe Biden.

• 
• SOURCE: The Guardian
  1/5/2020
  

  Josh Hawley Dodges Question During Fox News Grilling on Election Challenge

  Senator Josh Hawley's demands that Congress intervene in the electoral vote certification depends on ignoring that A: Congress formed such a commission in 1877 after three states failed to certify their vote and B: the resulting compromise forfeited the politial and civil rights of Black Americans.