It reached the larger public through films like, The work of “revising” the history of Reconstruction began with the writings of a handful of survivors of the era, such as John R. Lynch, who had served as a black congressman from Mississippi after the Civil War. Reconstruction: An Anthology of Revisionist Writings NEVERTHELESS , THE demise of the traditional interpretation was inevitable, for it ignored the testimony of the central participant in the drama of Reconstruction—the black freedman. AN UNDERSTANDING OF this fundamental conflict over the relation between government and society helps explain the pervasive complaints concerning corruption and “extravagance” during Radical Reconstruction. It was not until the 1960s that the full force of the revisionist wave broke over the field. The revisionists of the 1960s effectively established a series of negative points: the Reconstruction governments were not as bad as had been portrayed, black supremacy was a myth, the Radicals were not cynical manipulators of the freedmen. An orgy of corruption followed, presided over by unscrupulous carpetbaggers (Northerners who ventured south to reap the spoils of office), traitorous scalawags (Southern whites who cooperated with the new governments for personal gain), and the ignorant and childlike freedmen, who were incapable of properly exercising the political power that had been thrust upon them. Du Bois and Horace Mann Bond is also included. … Remember the true and loyal are the poor of the whites and blacks, outside of these you can find none loyal.”. IN THE PAST twenty years, no period of American history has been the subject of a more thoroughgoing réévaluation than Reconstruction—the violent, dramatic, and still controversial era following the Civil War. Can I get copies of items from the Library? Support with a donation>>. Plantation slavery was simultaneously a system of labor, a form of racial domination, and the foundation upon which arose a distinctive ruling class within the South. And, while the Civil Rights Act and the activism of black Americans produced measurable gains in the educational, professional, and political achievements of blacks, they have failed to deliver in far-reaching ways, claimed Litwack. As for corruption, moral standards in both government and private enterprise were at low ebb throughout the nation in the postwar years—the era of Boss Tweed, the Credit Mobilier scandal, and the Whiskey Ring. Top subscription boxes – right to your door, © 1996-2020, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. McFeely, William S. Yankee Stepfather: General O.O. More recent historians have rightly pointed to elements of continuity that spanned the nineteenth-century Southern experience, especially the survival, in modified form, of the plantation system. Unless one means by freedom the simple fact of not being a slave, emancipation thrust blacks into a kind of no-man’s land, a partial freedom that made a mockery of the American ideal of equal citizenship. Several states, moreover, enacted heavy taxes on uncultivated land to discourage land speculation and force land onto the market, benefiting, it was hoped, the freedmen. The "conspiracy theory" of the fourteenth amendment, by H. J. Graham. Check out the new look and enjoy easier access to your favorite features. By A. W. Trelease. IN THE END, THEN , neither the abolition of slavery nor Reconstruction succeeded in resolving the debate over the meaning of freedom in American life. Eric Foner (recent) Reconstruction did not create full equality, but allowed for some advancement of blacks (churches, etc.) His talks explored the legacies of Reconstruction and Jim Crow, the impact of World War II, and the promise of the Civil Rights Movement on black Americans. © Copyright 1949-2018 American Heritage Publishing Co. All Rights Reserved. With the same narrative skill he brought to the Pulitzer Prize-winning Been in the Storm So Long, Leon Litwack constructs a searing history of life under Jim Crow. “Even as the Civil Rights Movement struck down legal barriers, it failed to dismantle economic barriers,” he said. While their achievements in such realms as education, civil rights, and the economic rebuilding of the South are now widely appreciated, historians today believe they failed to affect either the economic plight of the emancipated slave or the ongoing transformation of independent white farmers into cotton tenants.