Comments on: History Channel Does Reconstruction Right

By: margaretdblough

margaretdblough — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 17:42:15 +0000

Kevin:

James Longstreet was already under vicious attack for supporting the Reconstruction government of Louisiana but it reached even higher levels after he commanded black militia and city police in an unsuccessful defense of the government against an attack by the White League, mostly composed of former Confederate veterans, in the infamous Battle of Liberty Place in New Orleans on September 14, 1874. I know a Longstreet great-grandson (not that old, his mother is the daughter of Longstreet's youngest son's second marriage and was born when her father was 63) and I tell him that there isn't a descendant of any other Confederate general who can find a favorable reference to their ancestor in W.E.B. DuBois' “Black Reconstruction”. The treatment of the events at Liberty Place is another example of struggles over how events should be remembered.

By: margaretdblough

margaretdblough — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 11:42:15 +0000

Kevin:

By: toby joyce

toby joyce — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:24:33 +0000

I hope this documentary gets a wide audience. It may counteract the myth (a mandatory boast of American exceptionalism) that “no one has obtained power through violence here”. The way violence was used to suppress black voting rights was a fairly typical example of the type of fascist terror used by Hitler and many insurgencies since the 1870s. In fact the USA is the first modern state where a quasi-secessionist group won local rights through a unashamed terrorist campaign against its opponents.

By: Kevin Levin

Kevin Levin — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 23:12:21 +0000

I'll second that. It's an excellent documentary.

By: Tim

Tim — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 23:05:05 +0000

I have viewed “Aftershock,” and while it makes some great points I would first recommend the PBS American Experience documentary “Reconstruction: The Second Civil War.” It is fantastic.

By: boydharris

boydharris — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 18:39:26 +0000

Definitely. I visited the battlefield in 2007 and then read his book that fall. It was the visit and his last chapter in the book, “Public Memory and Fort Pillow,” that got me thinking about battlefield commemoration at Fort Pillow. I returned to the site this past summer for research. The park has copies of several other studies in their main office, but not that one. It is a shame, since his is one of the better, if not the best, studies of the battle and it's aftermath.

By: Charles

Charles — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 04:44:39 +0000

Interesting , my Native Friends see all this very different. They see actions like the Seminole wars, wounded Knee and countless other atrocities committed against their people as bad or worse than Reconstruction. Spend some time at the Crazy Horse memorial and you will see a very different view of men like Phil Sheridan, Sherman, Grant and others. Many times a persons view of history is influenced by their life experiences, just as a viewing of a work of Art. Many can gaze upon a work of Art and walk away with a very different perceptions. I remember seeing Mayan Cities like Tulum and Aulton-Ha the people visiting were over come with their beauty and the great civilization that they once were a part of. Nobody focused on or give much thought to the human sacrifices and other carnage that took place in these culture and these cites. IMO Human history has a linage of non ending human atrocities, Reconstruction is just a drop of water in the sea of human life on earth. Come back to earth a thousand years from now things will not have changed, just a new set of problems humans will have created for themselves .

By: Kevin Levin

Kevin Levin — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 21:00:52 +0000

Nice to hear from you. My interest was peaked early on after seeing Hogue interviewed. His study of the New Orleans street battles during Reconstruction is a first-rate scholarly example of just what the History Channel documentary is getting at. It is fitting that he was interviewed for it.

You research sounds like it's right up my alley. I assume you are familiar with John Cimprich's recent study.

By: boydharris

boydharris — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 20:50:55 +0000

I saw this over Thanksgiving break. My Daddy had recorded it and I started watching it late at night. I was drifting off to sleep, when I suddenly heard Jim Hogue's voice. Lets just say that hearing your thesis advisor's voice as you drift off to sleep doesn't exactly create a restful environment. I had to turn it off. I watched it the next day.
My research focuses on the commemoration of Fort Pillow battlefield. This continuation of violence into Reconstruction, and even after, can be related back to the events that occurred at Fort Pillow. This creates a unique problem at Fort Pillow, particularly in the interpretation of the battle. Battlefields are sites of violence and blood, but there is a sense that after it was over, “it was all left on the field.” This is part of the reconciliation theme seen at nearly every single major Civil War battlefield. Commemoration becomes problematic at battlefields like Fort Pillow, precisely because the violence that occurred there is repeated, in various forms, beyond 1865.

By: msimons

msimons — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 18:48:05 +0000

Sometimes I think Reconstruction is a darker spot on our Nation s history than the Civil War.