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 13th Amendment African Americans Emancipation & Reconstruction Book Reviews Lincoln

Lincoln and the Thirteenth Amendment (Concise Lincoln Library) by Christian G. Samito

Lincoln and the Thirteenth Amendment (Concise Lincoln Library) by Christian G. Samito published by Southern Illinois University Press 188 pages (2015) Hardcover $24.93 Kindle $14.72. Lincoln…

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Posted in African Americans Emancipation & Reconstruction Memory of Reconstruction Monuments

National Park Service Handbook on Reconstruction

The National Park Service has a handbook out on the Reconstruction Era. Here is a link to it. It is similar to the familiar NPS…

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Posted in African Americans Emancipation & Reconstruction Book Reviews Education Freedmen's Bureau

Educational Reconstruction African American Schools in the Urban South, 1865–1890 by Hilary Green

Educational Reconstruction African American Schools in the Urban South, 1865–1890 by Hilary Green published by Fordham University Press (2016) 272 pages, Paperback $35.00, Kindle $22.99.​…

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Posted in African Americans Emancipation & Reconstruction Women and Gender

Look What Just Dropped: Harriet Tubman BioPic Trailer Out!

The trailer just dropped for the new film Harriet about the life of abolitionist, Union spy, and African American civil rights leader Harriet Tubman. The…

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Posted in African Americans Emancipation & Reconstruction Religion

The Black Republican Party in Georgia Organized in May 1867 by African Americans

While the influential white supremacist historian of Reconstruction William Dunning often presented African Americans in the South as the ignorant tools of Northern whites, in…

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Posted in African Americans Emancipation & Reconstruction Videos

Rhiannon Giddens’s Song Offers Dialogue Between Slave Owner and Freedwoman at Moment of Emancipation

Rhiannon Giddens of the Carolina Chocolate Drops has a new solo album out called Freedom Highway. The song “Julie” presents a dialogue between a slave and…

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Posted in African Americans Emancipation & Reconstruction

Eyewitness Account of the Joyous First 4th of July Celebration in Raleigh NC since Fort Sumter: A Contrast in Black and White

The end of the Civil War was a joyous time for many Southerners who were able to once again openly celebrate the national Independance Day,…

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Posted in African Americans Emancipation & Reconstruction Andrew Johnson Army Occupation End of War White Supremacy White Terror

German General Carl Schurz Begins His Investigation of the Post-War South

Union General Carl Schurz began his inspection tour of the South just a month after the last Confederate forces surrendered. Schurz, a German refugee, embarked…

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

When Southern Whites Boycotted and Blacks Embraced the Fourth of July During Reconstruction

Many Americans are familiar, at least with the title, with Frederick Douglass’s 1852 speech “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” What they…

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