The Collapse of Radical Reconstruction

About this episode

With the passage of the 15th amendment, some Americans believed the battle had finally been won: the former slave now had the right to vote. But what followed, was a systematic retreat on the promises of Radical Reconstruction and the ascendance of a new regime of American racial rule.

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Jun 2022

Storm and Stress: Jim Crow America

In the aftermath of the collapse of Reconstruction, we chart the emergence of Jim Crow laws and the extralegal violence that made it the law of the land. In many ways, this period laid the foundation for the Black freedom Struggle of the mid-twentieth century.

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The Second Reconstruction

The Civil Rights movement of the mid-twentieth century begins despite the internal conflicts that shape it. We focus particularly on the complex response to the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963 as well as the ideological debates surrounding ... Show More

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White Betrayal

The black freedom struggle of the mid-twentieth century leads to the emergence of white backlash. Here we show how conservatives mobilized immediately, in the courts and in the streets, to undo the promises of the Great Society and the gains of the civil rights movement.

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