Customer Reviews

The Two Reconstructions: The Struggle for Black Enfranchisement (American Politics and Political Economy Series)

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In modern thought, history is often regarded as a linear progression towards a better future. Valelly offers a thoughtful counterpoint. That events are not always so benign. The 2 reconstructions of the title refer to the Reconstruction immediately after the American Civil War, and the civil rights era of a century later. The latter is not commonly termed a Reconstruction. Yet the book shows that we can usefully understand it in terms of what happened or did not happen in the first Reconstruction.

Not necessarily pleasant reading, when the book deals with the 19th century. In somewhat clinical language, Valelly shows how the intent of black suffrage and equality was blunted and then virtually totally reversed. A disquieting reminder and analysis of what went wrong. To a contemporary reader, the lackadasical attitudes of the federal government to events in the former Confederate states are outrageous. Even in the context of the times, the federal government was dominated by Republicans, who successfully waged the Civil War. You'd think that they would have little empathy for their former white foes. In the immediate years after the Civil War, this was largely true. And led to immense black empowerment.

But as the decades rolled on, the picture reversed dramatically. Only after World War 2 do we see renewed progress.