To DuBois’s devastating exposé of the lies in the history textbooks, Foner adds, on p. That Reconstruction was a disgraceful attempt to subject white people to ignorant Negro rule ….” What are American children taught today about Reconstruction?…that Negroes were the only people to achieve emancipation with no effort on their part. The North was ashamed because it had to call in the black men to save the Union, abolish slavery, and establish democracy. The South was ashamed because it fought to perpetuate human slavery. “How the facts of American history have in the last half-century been falsified because the nation was ashamed.

In the chapter of Black Reconstruction titled “The Propaganda of History,” DuBois questions the ways in which Reconstruction was being taught in our schools. DuBois’s Black Reconstruction, still the classic work on this critical period of history.ĭuBois also wrote that the Emancipation of those enslaved in Confederate states was a step needed by the North to win the war.

Here, Foner takes his inspiration from W. Of those who remained on the plantations, slave owners complained that many were refusing to work. By 1863, a large number of enslaved people had freed themselves and run away to join the Union Army. The Emancipation Proclamation made official what was already happening on the ground. Emancipation was also necessary for the North to win the Civil War, a war that they had been losing up to 1863. Emancipation was a revolutionary change, an essential step to taking away power from the rebel slaveowners. But I read on and soon saw the author’s logic. That got my attention because I had thought Reconstruction began after the end of the Civil War in 1865. He dates the beginning of Reconstruction, the re-making of the Confederate South, to Lincoln’s signing of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. And Foner shares with the reader many samples of what people were saying or writing during Reconstruction, giving us greater insight into what was going on at the time. It’s not a new book, but there is renewed interest in Reconstruction by the movement around Black Lives Matter and others. Reconstruction, America’s Unfinished Revolution 1863-1877, by Eric Foner, published in 1988, is a delightful read, all 619 pages. Waud, “The First Vote,” November 1867 / Library of Congress In this 'Harper’s Weekly' print, Black men of various occupations wait patiently for their turn as the first voter submits his ballot. With the passage of the 15th Amendment, droves of Black men went to the polls to exercise their newly recognized right to vote.

Eric foner view on reconstruction