Daniel Aaron Lazar » USH: Reconstruction

Debates on African American Education

Dan Lazar — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 17:41:22 +0000

“Some one may be tempted to ask, Has not the negro boy or girl as good a right to study a French grammar and instrumental music as the white youth? I answer, Yes, but in the present condition of the negro race in this country there is need of something more…” Read Washington’s “Awakening of the Negro” from the Atlantic in 1901

“I sit with Shakespeare and he winces not. Across the color line I move arm in arm with Balzac and Dumas, where smiling men and welcoming women glide in gilded halls. From out the caves of Evening that swing between the strong-limbed earth and the tracery of the stars, I summon Aristotle and Aurelius and what souls I will, and they come all graciously with no scorn nor condescension. So, wed with Truth, I dwell above the Veil. Is this the life you grudge us, O knightly America? Is this the life you long to change into the dull red hideousness of Georgia? Are you so afraid lest peering from this high Pisgrah, between Philistine and Amalekite, we sight the Promised Land?” Read Dubois’ Response to Washinton in “Of the Training of Black Men” from the Atlantic

WEB DuBois on the Freedman’s Bureau

Dan Lazar — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 17:38:05 +0000

The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line; the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea. It was a phase of this problem that caused the Civil War; and however much they who marched south and north in 1861 may have fixed on the technical points of union and local autonomy as a shibboleth, all nevertheless knew, as we know, that the question of Negro slavery was the deeper cause of the conflict. Curious it was, too, how this deeper question ever forced itself to the surface, despite effort and disclaimer. No sooner had Northern armies touched Southern soil than this old question, newly guised, sprang from the earth, — What shall be done with slaves? Peremptory military commands, this way and that, could not answer the query; the Emancipation Proclamation seemed but to broaden and intensify the difficulties; and so at last there arose in the South a government of men called the Freedmen’s Bureau, which lasted, legally, from 1865 to 1872, but in a sense from 1861 to 1876, and which sought to settle the Negro problems in the United States of America.

It is the aim of this essay to study the Freedmen’s Bureau (9 pages from 1901)– the occasion of its rise, the character of its work, and its final success and failure–not only as a part of American history, but above all as one of the most singular and interesting of the attempts made by a great nation to grapple with vast problems of race and social condition.

Jourdan Anderson’s Letter to His Former Master

Dan Lazar — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 03:18:56 +0000

I would love to shake Mr. Anderson’s hand. What a splendid letter.

Retreat from Reconstruction: the Grant Era and Paths to “Southern Redemption”

Dan Lazar — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 13:40:18 +0000

This lecture opens with a discussion of the myriad moments at which historians have declared an “end” to Reconstruction, before shifting to the myth and reality of “Carpetbag rule” in the Reconstruction South. Popularized by Lost Cause apologists and biased historians, this myth suggests that the southern governments of the Reconstruction era were dominated by unscrupulous and criminal Yankees who relied on the ignorant black vote to rob and despoil the innocent South. The reality, of course, diverges widely from this image. Among other accomplishments, the Radical state governments that came into existence after 1868 made important gains in African-American rights and public education. Professor Blight closes the lecture with the passage of the 15th Amendment, the waning radicalism of the Republican party after 1870, and the rise of white political terrorism across the South.

Ever wanna go to Yale? Well here ya go. Watch and learn.

Eric Foner On Post-Civil War Disappointments

Dan Lazar — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 07:06:02 +0000

Eric Foner, author of Our Lincoln, talks about the era following the Civil War in which former slaves were promised equal rights and citizenship. Foner is DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University.

12 good minutes with Foner

Ghosts of the South

Dan Lazar — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 18:49:29 +0000

It was over a lunch of Confederate fried steak in Columbia, S.C., that I realized something crucial about North and South. A passport ought to be required to travel from one to the other. Despite decades of economic and cultural homogenization, the regions remain as different as basketball and NASCAR. That thought occurred when my lunch partner, a man named Chris Sullivan, told me this: “To say the War Between the States was about slavery is like saying the Revolutionary War was about tea.” And he meant it, sure as the pear trees bloom in sun-washed Columbia, the South is rising once again…

The article

Response Sheet

RECONSTRUCTION: THE SECOND AMERICAN REVOLUTION (?)

Dan Lazar — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 08:08:05 +0000

After the Civil War, the founders’ mistrust of strong federal government yielded to radical Republicans’ demands for a central government powerful enough to protect the newly-won liberties of freedmen.

Read James MacPherson’s: RECONSTRUCTION: THE SECOND AMERICAN REVOLUTION

Q&A: The Myths of Reconstruction

Dan Lazar — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 08:05:53 +0000

Reconstruction may be one of the most misunderstood eras in American history. Versions of the era like the early motion picture Birth of a Nation (1915) and the novel Gone With the Wind (1936) — which was made into one of the best-loved American movies of all time — popularized a view of the Old South as a genteel society of gallant aristocrats, a lost world shattered by Northern violence. These myths, of course, ignored the injustices of slavery, the era’s rampant racism, and the shocking violence of the time. They also missed the significance of the era’s advances in civil rights and justice.

Historians review some myths and misconceptions about the Reconstruction era.

Q&A: The Myths of Reconstruction

Reconstruction Lecture Notes

Dan Lazar — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 12:04:32 +0000

Reconstruction Lecture Notes

PBS American Experience Reconstruction Web Page