Until the 1990s, most U.S. schools and colleges taught that post-Civil-War reconstruction was misguided and corrupt, and that all people were better off when experienced whites regained control in the South.

This course examines revisionist—now dominant—history by Eric Foner and others starting in the 1980s. These accounts document how the nation abandoned assistance to ex-slaves, pushed them back onto plantations, and failed to rein in white violence, intimidation, and Jim Crow laws. We’ll also read and discuss more recent writing on how Black subservience was sustained into the 20th century and beyond, in the South—and North, too.

Participants will be assigned readings from Foner’s Reconstruction book (abridged). Other homework will include readings from other books, and watching The Birth of a Nation (and perhaps another film).