Collective Memory : The Political Nature And Consequences Of Erasure

In “Reconstruction Revisited”, Eric Foner reexamines the political, social, and economic experiences of black and white Americans in the aftermath of the Civil War. With the help of many historian works, Foner gives equal representation to both sides of the Reconstruction argument.

The theme of race and reunion had become a competition for memories with vastly different aspirations between the north and the south. Striving for a reunion, a majority of American white communities close obscure the civil war racial narrative would only fade. In race and reunion: The Civil War in American memory, by David Blight, represents how Americans chose to remember the Civil War conflict, from the beginning of the turning point of the war. The two major themes race and reunion, demonstrate how white Americans adjusted and altered the causes and outcomes of the Civil War to reflect their particular ideas regarding this catastrophic conflict between Northerners and Southerners era. Blight, addresses how these differences in cultures collided in the visions that they saw America becoming when reunited as a union after the Civil War, reconciliationists, White supremacy and emancipationist. Blight does an excellent job of showing the arguments between all three versions of the Civil War. As the emancipationist image kept a firm hold amongst ex-slaves, it lost much of its white support and political power. Reconciliation became more about healing, allowing racial injustice of the supremacist movement to seep into the landscape of national healing. why do Union veterans allow the real cause of the war, slavery, to disappear from the memory of the war – Blight strives to answer. Through a culture of remembrance, veterans looked back at their experience with a sort of

Why do we hate? Why do we lie? Why do we forget? Three questions provide a strong explanation of how African Americans were treated, whether it was the use of verbal or physical abuse. These questions also describes how African Americans were implied into education. Authors wrote many issues regarding the ignorance and abolishment of slavery in more of a “Whites” perspective to teach the American society what they want to hear and not what actually happened. And further more, forgotten sources. Some want to forget was has happened over the course of our time, some want to hide the truth of how this has affected society and the race around us. Three documents were discussed with hidden facts and deep recognition of what is the truth behind

As much as Reconstruction had initially tried to help the South, it was the sole goal of this movement to, “undo as much as possible of Reconstruction.” State facilities originally that were supposed to help everyone were closed down, and the gap between black and white expenditures on schooling increased. Due to the depression in the 1890’s this worsened the situation for black families trying to make a living in the South couldn’t keep up their farms or the places that their children would learn. “In 1900, no public high schools for blacks existed in the South. Black elementary schools, one observer reported, occupied buildings “as bad as stables””. New laws about segregation also affected blacks in more ways than just demoralization, it also showed what kind of jobs were considered good work for them. In the instance of segregation on railroads, “many blacks could be found in “whites only” railroad cars. But they entered as servants and nurses, not as paying customers entitled to equal treatment. The rise of lynching also affected the way blacks lived their lives, by controlling the way they vote, how they treated whites, and how they couldn’t rely on the justice system to address their grievances. An example of the reduced number of voters is best seen in Louisiana, where the number of voters dropped from 130, 000 to 1, 342, which is directly linked to the use of violence as a way to intimidate black voters. Blacks also had to be careful how they acted around white, since murder wasn’t a federal crime and was handled by the state, many blacks were lynched without fair trials and accused of crimes like raping white women, murder, and theft. A majority of the accused never when to trial. All in all blacks in the South were largely affected negatively as a result in policy changes, social factors, and widespread violence. This injustice carried on

The Condemnation of Blackness by Kahlil Gibran Muhammad outlines the struggles and tribulations that African Americans had to face after the American Civil War. The book gives specific accounts as to why African Americans were deemed “The New Problem” and how that changed, highlighting discrimination of African Americans as the real problem. Muhammad also focuses of on the work done by social scientist, criminologist, libertarians, activist of both black and white races and how their work affected the African American people and their place in society as a whole. Muhammad also explains how the labeling of blacks as criminals has had an influence on our society today.

Beginning in 1861, the civil war was fought over many political questions regarding slavery, yet was barely focused on the actual freedom of the slaves themselves. It is often taught that the Union fought for the freedom of slaves at the beginning of the war. However, it is more accurate to say that Abraham Lincoln’s primary goal at the beginning of the war was to reunite the Union after the majority of the slave-owning states seceded to protect their way of life: slavery. Yet, by the end of the war, the Union’s goal was to free the slaves. Though the laws securing slaves freedom and suffrage were contributed to by many, the primary driving forces behind them was the African Americans. Through their willingness to fight and support the Union cause, African Americans made the United States acknowledge their struggles and transformed the war into a fight for reconnection and freedom. Though hindered by racist people and policies, the African Americans’ participation during the war and Reconstruction greatly contributed to tremendous cultural change as well as the securing of legal rights to blacks.

At the end of the Civil War, America faced the difficult task of uniting not only two separated territories of the United States, but also two races long separated by racism and culture. Devastated and embittered by the damage of the war, the South had a long way to go in order to achieve true equality between the former slave owners and former slaves. The majority of the South remained set in racist behavior, finding post-Civil War legal loopholes to diminish African American rights (Tindall & Shi, 2010, pp. 757-758). Southerners continued to marginalize Blacks in their behavior toward ex-slaves and the later African American generation,

The Civil War and Reconstruction periods had many positive outcomes for America, such as the reunification of the Union, the expansion of the North and South’s economy, education for all, and much more. Although there were many positive results from these two periods, there was also an aftermath of much failure. The post Civil War, and Reconstruction period consisted of the formation of the Ku Klux Klan and the black code laws. Despite the fact that African American’s were no longer slaves, in many ways they were still not free. Furthermore, the creation of things such as the Ku Klux Klan and the black codes created high tension between the black and white races, a tension that can be argued is still present in modern day America. This essay will examine the aspects of how the post Civil War and Reconstruction period was a failure with regards to social, economic and political, and radical development for newly freed slaves.

The excerpt The Ending the War: The Push for National Reconciliation by David Blight, edited by Hoffman, Elizabeth Cobbs, Edward Blum and Jon Gjerde, in Major Problems in American History: Documents and Essays (Wadsworth, Cengage Leaning 2012) Blight argues historical memory that holds more importance than that of the Civil War. Like the Revolution, the memory of the Civil War played a role after the conflict. The concurrent issues in American society after the Civil War and against legislation to increase not decrease the racial problem in the South. Newly freed African Americans struggling to assimilate to society and be accepted as equal citizens in the reconstruction of the Union. This excerpt is rhetorically effective with statements on

As David Blight says in his novel, Race and Reunion, after the Civil War and emancipation, Americans were faced with the overwhelming task of trying to understand the relationship between “two profound ideas—healing and justice.” While he admits that both had to occur on some level, healing from the war was not the same “proposition” for many whites, especially veterans, as doing justice for the millions of emancipated slaves and their descendants (Blight 3). Blight claims that African Americans did not want an apology for slavery, but instead a helping hand. Thus, after the Civil War, two visions of Civil War memory arose and combined: the reconciliationist vison, which focused on the issue of dealing with the dead from the battlefields, hospitals, and prisons, and the emancipationist vision, which focused on African Americans’ remembrance of their own freedom and in conceptions of the war as the “liberation of [African Americans] to citizenship and Constitutional equality” (Blight 2).

The newly freed slaves were gaining rights that were always only a dream with legal marriage, education, and power over their children’s lives. However, Black Codes were being used to recreate slavery and were making it hard for African Americans to own property and function in society. (Lecture 1/29/16) Their rights were not given without many exceptions including that African Americans who were convicted of felonies were being put back to work on farms that they were just given the freedom to leave, and all of a sudden it was much easier to get a felony charge for being black and not having a job were considered committing a crime. President Johnson’s neglect of action in southern states was making it nearly impossible for the former slaves to function in society, even after The Civil Rights Act of 1866, and leads into the creation of the Ku Klux Klan

As a country, America has gone though many political changes throughout its lifetime. Leaders have come and gone, and all of them have had their own objectives and plans for the future. As history has taken its course, though, almost all of these “revolutionary movements” have come to an end. One such movement was Reconstruction. Reconstruction was a violent period that defined the defeated South’s status in the Union and the meaning of freedom for ex-slaves. Though, like many things in life, it did come to an end, and the resulting outcome has been labeled both a success and a failure.

To a great extent, the involvement of African American’s in the Civil War and the occurrence of this war at the time, the democratic government needed a strong force, assisted in uplifting the status and dignity of the black people in the american society. This created a highway to commence a number of constitutional reforms that gave blacks the freedom and chance to engage in many issues affecting the American people as a nation, and the black identity unlike before.

For years the enslaved black people of America was forced to sit through a day, year after year, that expresses freedom and independence. Just as today, the people of this great nation are being told to never forget about that tragic day when flight 9/11 flew into the twin towers in Manhattan, New York. On the other hand, we the people, of all races, are slowly being told to forget about slavery for what it really was. To help celebrate the start of the Civil War (April 12, 1861), the Pew Research Center surveyed americans to gather their views on the causes and effects of this war. But to their surprise, 48 percent of americans believe that the Civil War was due to the conservation of states rights.

Many people, including people of our generation, deny the events that shape our history. “The denial of Jefferson’s relationship with Sally Hemmings is deeply rooted in two hundred years of America’s silence about slavery, as if by not talking about it we could wish it away” (Lanier 7). Slavery is one of the most prominent parts that make up the many pages of our country’s mistakes and sacrifices. If we treat slavery as if it never happened, we will know no better than to discriminate and let prejudice take over. “There is a terror faced by those who deny the truth in these pages: that one day race will cease to matter, and from that moment on, our hearts will know no boundaries” (Lanier 9). One of the only ways to fix our nation’s mistakes is to discuss them, and hiding our mistakes will not help our country move forward. African-Americans were considered an embarrassment to society instead of a pleasure to welcome. “The ones who wouldn’t dance with a Negro, they went home in a huff that day, but some came back” (Hesse 3). Some whites at the time realized that blacks were people too, and they should be able to have the same standards and respect as whites did. However, many white people were not being civil and respectful to those around them. “A civilized man in America, how refreshing” (Hesse 83). Most African-Americans wanted to be united and equal. All of these examples represent the Cultural Universal of values, which are judgments of the good or bad in a culture’s system of