Reconstructed, Ep 1: Birth of a Black Na...

Rachel Maddow’s new series lays bare one of the most shocking decisions in American history. It’s story that reveals how an executive order authorizing the mass roundup of innocent Japanese Americans came to be, the powerful players who engineered it, and the burn order that trie ... Show More

<p>As a bonus for Into America listeners, we're sharing Trymaine's recent conversation on Why Is This Happening? The Chris Hayes podcast. Trymaine discusses his new book, “A Thousand Ways to Die: The True Cost of Violence on Black Life in America" and talks about the weight of be ... Show More

<p>In a follow up to the series Uncounted Millions: the Power of Reparations - which chronicled the remarkable story of Gabriel Coakley, one of the only Black Americans to ever receive reparations for slavery – Trymaine Lee hosted a live discussion and debate on the future of rep ... Show More

Reconstruction has long been taught as a lost cause narrative. The true story is one of great force. The great force of a powerful activist Black community that strived to establish a multiracial democracy and achieved great successes and political power. The great force of a vio ... Show More

<p>President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, freeing the slaves in much of the South. But the road to freedom—true freedom—would take generations longer for most black Americans.</p><p>In this new six-part series, we investigate their stru ... Show More

During the 1870s, more than a dozen African American men, many of whom had been born into slavery, were elected to the U.S. Congress. These political pioneers symbolized the sky high hopes of millions of former slaves during the years right after the Civil War. It was a period th ... Show More

<p>In the spring of 1865, the United States celebrated the end of four years of Civil War. As American soldiers laid down their weapons, four million formerly enslaved Black people in the South grappled with the daunting task of building new lives as free citizens in a nation sti ... Show More

May 26, 1965. One hundred years after the Civil War, Congress is debating a bill whose goal is to enforce the 15th amendment, which, in 1870, promised the right to vote regardless of race. But that’s not what happened. Now the Civil Rights movement is saying: It’s time to make re ... Show More

The Ku Klux Klan was arguably America’s first organized terrorist movement. It was a paramilitary unit that arose in the South during the early years of Reconstruction. At its peak in the early 1870s, the Klan boasted many tens of thousands of members, no small number of them lan ... Show More

February 3, 1870. The 15th Amendment is ratified, which establishes the right to vote for black men in America. While Jim Crow laws would grip the south by 1877, there was a brief, seven-year window of opportunity. Half a million black voters turned out at the polls, and 2,000 bl ... Show More

In the United States, the stoicism and importance of the “working class” is part of the national myth. The term is often used to conjure the contributions and challenges of the white working class – and this obscures the ways in which Black workers built institutions like the rai ... Show More

May 10, 1865. Jefferson Davis is awakened by gunshots. The president of the defeated and disbanded Confederate States of America is on the run, and today, federal troops finally catch him. His arrest puts the face of the Confederacy behind bars. But it also creates a problem for ... Show More