Reconstruction

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• SOURCE: Arkansas Democrat & Gazette
  4/11/2021
  

  Unsung and Unknown — Graphic Biography Details Life of First Black Lieutenant Governor, Oscar Dunn

  Professor Brian Mitchell's path into history began with a teacher's disbelief that one of his relatives had been the Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana. He now tells the story of Oscar Dunn in a graphic form to make it as widely accessible as possible. 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  3/29/2021
  

  The Lack of Federal Voting Rights Protections Returns Us to the Pre-Civil War Era

  by Kate Masur

  New vote suppression bills in multiple states threaten to return the United States not to the Jim Crow era but to the period before the Civil War and Reconstruction when civil and political rights were protected or denied according to state politics. 

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• SOURCE: National Geographic
  3/22/2021
  

  This U.S. Governor was Impeached—For Cracking Down on the KKK

  Governor William Woods Holden responded to a brazen campaign of KKK terrorism with a declaration of martial law in two North Carolina counties. The backlash led to his impeachment. 

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• SOURCE: Art & Object
  3/15/2021
  

  Understanding a Political Cartoon: Nast & Reconstruction

  Dr. Kimberly Kutz Elliott and Dr. Beth Harris take a close read of Thomas Nast's 1874 political cartoon, "The Union As It Was—Worse Than Slavery." (H/T to the Twitter feed of Kevin M. Levin!)

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• SOURCE: CNN
  3/3/2021
  

  The Capitol Riot is an Eerie Repeat of this Tense Era in American History

  Historian Brian K. Mitchell tells the story of Oscar James Dunn's service as the Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana during Reconstruction; Kate Masur also comments on Reconstruction era politics. 

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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.

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• 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.