Posted in African Americans Emancipation & Reconstruction Book Reviews Civil War Lost Cause

Book Review: Searching for Black Confederates by Kevin Levin

Newly Published Searching for Black Confederates: The Civil War’s Most Persistent Myth by Kevin M. Levin published by University of North Carolina Press (2019) Hardcover…

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Posted in Ku Klux Klan

Civil Rights Group Uses 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act to Go After Modern White Nationalist Terrorists

The 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act was passed to counter a growing wave of white supremacist terrorism during the Reconstruction Era. The law made individuals…

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Posted in Refugees White Supremacy White Terror

In May 1869 Republican Refugees Fled to Atlanta

Increasing violence in 1868 and 1869 led some white Republicans to flee the Southern countryside for the protection of Federal garrisons. This story recounts the…

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Posted in Liberal Republicans White Supremacy White Supremacy Apologetics

The Dangerous Idea that Only White People Can Govern Themselves: Horace Greeley

Adam Serwer at The Atlantic Magazine has an interesting article this week on the persistent American idea that only white people are capable of governing…

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Posted in Videos

“Reconstruction: America After the Civil War” Documentary to Run this Week on Many PBS Stations

Beginning tomorrow, many PBS stations are rerunning Henry Louis Gates’s four hour series Reconstruction: America After the Civil War. Check your local PBS station’s schedule…

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Posted in African Americans Emancipation & Reconstruction White Supremacy White Supremacy Apologetics White Terror

Resource-After Slavery: Race, Labor, and Politics in the Low Country Carolinas

I recently learned about this free on-line resource After Slavery: Race, Labor, and Politics in the Low Country Carolinas. You can access it here. This…

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Posted in Immigrants White Terror

The Memphis Massacre of 1866: A Race Riot Pits Immigrants Against Freed Slaves

John C. Creighton had emerged as an important figure in Irish American politics in Memphis in 1866. He was elected recorder for the city and…

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Posted in Memory of Reconstruction Slavery

Washington Post Publishes Comments of Plantation Tourists Complaining that They Learned About Slavery!

For about a hundred years, “Plantation Tours” in the South virtually ignored the slaves who made up the vast majority of the people living on…

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Posted in African Americans Emancipation & Reconstruction Freedmen's Bureau Immigrants White Terror

Prelude to a Reconstruction Riot: Irish and Blacks in Memphis in 1866

Immigrants lived in much of the United States at the start of the Civil War, but their numbers were not evenly distributed. Roughly 90% of…

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Posted in Book Reviews Education Freedmen's Bureau Women and Gender

Self-Taught: African American Education in Slavery and Freedom by Heather Andrea Williams

Self-Taught: African American Education in Slavery and Freedom by Heather Andrea Williams published by University of North Carolina Press (2007) $29.95 Paperback $18.83 Kindle. ​ Self-Taught:…

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