A Short History of Reconstruction

clear-cut, well-written, absolutely fucking appalling.

here's the thing: my public school teachers politely glossed over that whole RECONSTRUCTION thing, subtitled "In Which White Politicians Decide To Continue The System Of Slavery, Albeit Informally". i suspect my teachers were not allowed to teach us about Reconstruction, in the same way they were not allowed to teach about the Holocaust, or the Vietnam War, or the US-run internment camps for Japanese citizens, or the various atrocities committed against the Native population, or ... anything that might cast the US in a less-than-shining light.

we missed out on a lot of history in history class, is what i'm saying.

so. for the past two hundred years or so, the South has deliberately show more worked to keep a nasty, racist culture in place. (the North has been deliberately complacent.)

this is not okay.
(understatement.)

this is not a few individuals being jerks.
this is a system of control.
it is not acceptable.
(understatement.)

here is the story of the beginning, or rather one beginning, or rather the story of the choice to continue when there was a damn good opportunity to stop. the system had been dismantled and it was put back together again because people (white people. rich white people) decided there was more money to be made more fun in beating, raping, lynching, shooting, terrorizing, violence extraordinare and as ordinary as the sun rising
-- than in complying with, you know, a standard moral code.

this is not a handful of people. this is an entire country, most especially the persons in power, who decide that it's better for some to be enslaved and others raised above their deserts, than for everyone to be equal and free.

this is wrong.
(understatement.)

(note: i was born and raised a Southerner. since you'll ask, my family came to America a few decades after formal slavery was abolished ... but i am white. i have always profited from a culture of white supremacy. owning human slaves is a symptom, not the sickness itself.) show less

Good survey of a hugely important but frequently overlooked period in US history. Reconstruction was complex, often morally ambiguous, and is still controversial. Although relatively brief, this is serious history, not a novelistic treatment by any means. Foner gives you the basics - after reading this, you can decide whether to dig into one of the longer histories of the period. I haven't yet taken that step, but I can understand now why it might be worthwhile.

Post Civil War South