Category: White Supremacy
A Question for Readers: Were White Supremacy & Black Civil Rights Irreconcilable?
I was watching a lecture by historian David Blight in which he says one of the key challenges of Reconstruction after emancipation and Confederate defeat…
Virginia: Failed Attempt to Replace “Worthless Negroes” with Immigrant Laborers in 1868
After the Civil War, there were various unsuccessful schemes to import European immigrants to the South. White employers hoped to fill labor shortages created when…
In Defense of a White Man’s Government in Alabama January 1868
The Montgomery Advertiser January 14, 1868 gives an insight into what White Southern conservatives were fighting for during Reconstruction. It was “A White Man’s Government.” I…
The Knights of the White Camellia: Louisiana’s Klan
May 22, 1867 is the traditional anniversary of the founding of the The Knights of the White Camellia by, among others, Confederate Colonel Alcibiades DeBlanc. While…
When a Ban on Chinese Immigration Was Proposed in 1867 Frederick Douglass Stood Up in Opposition
Americans’ fear of non-white, non-Christian immigrants began in 1848 with the arrival of the first ship full of Chinese in San Francisco Bay. The Chinese…
Carl Schurz Warned That a “System of Terrorism” Was Taking Hold in the Post-War South in 1865
Carl Schurz arrived in South Carolina in the middle of July, 1865. He had been sent by new president Andrew Johnson to investigate the condition…
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…
William Dunning Explains the Restoration of Peace (and White Supremacy) in 1877 When Reconstruction Collapsed
This is the final installment of a four-part series on historian William Dunning. While the recent rise of the so-called Alt-Right has been a sad…
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…
Miscegenation Waltz: Fined $50 for Marrying a Black Woman July 1866
Before most Southern states began rebuilding their damaged infrastructure or taking care of their crippled veterans right after the Civil War, their legislatures busied themselves…
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