The twelve years that composed the post-war Reconstruction era (1865-77) witnessed a seismic shift in the meaning and makeup of our democracy, with millions of former slaves and free black people seeking out their rightful place as equal citizens under the law. Though tragically short-lived, this bold democratic experiment was, in the words of W. E. B. Du Bois, a ‘brief moment in the sun’ for African Americans, when they could advance, and achieve, education, exercise their right to vote, and run for and win public office.
For the real Reconstruction, you have to read something like J G Randall, The Civil War and Reconstruction. That gives a clearer picture.
Not Gates' Whig picture.
Those newly freed negroes were marched around polling stations by skalawags of Radical Republicans, accompanied by Union troops. They were fricking "voters" for Radical Republicans! Very few of them could even read, and why should they have learned to do so?
For the real Reconstruction, you have to read something like J G Randall, The Civil War and Reconstruction. That gives a clearer picture.
Not Gates' Whig picture.
Those newly freed negroes were marched around polling stations by skalawags of Radical Republicans, accompanied by Union troops. They were fricking "voters" for Radical Republicans! Very few of them could even read, and why should they have learned to do so?
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