The failure of the Reconstruction Era helps explain race relations in today’s America

More than 150 years ago, and for a short period of about 14 years, America tried in earnest to fulfill the promises of liberty and opportunity to Black Americans who had been enslaved.

The Reconstruction Era was about a push for racial justice and democracy, and there were some important strides made as African Americans began voting in larger numbers, building economic opportunities in their communities, and even holding public office.

But that progress didn’t come without violent pushback. White Americans — both in the South and North — organized around the idea of preventing Black progress, launching systematic, violent attacks on freed Blacks and their allies.

The story of Reconstruction, the violent reaction to it and its ultimate failure, has been told from the perspective of journalists, academics and military officers who frequently distort African Americans’ narratives or remove them from the story entirely. There’s been less accounting of what happened to Black bodies and Black liberation struggles during that time.

“I think it’s important to acknowledge that we live in the future created by Reconstruction’s overthrow and abandonment. We can see the direct lines between the failure to enforce and recognize African Americans’ right to be free, equal and secure in this period extended to the present day when Black people are targeted in supermarkets.” — Kidada Williams, WSU professor and author

Listen: Author Kidada Williams shares stories of Black Americans during the Reconstruction Era in new book

Guest

Kidada Williams is an associate professor at Wayne State University who researches African Americans’ experiences of racist violence. She recently wrote “I Saw Death Coming: A History of Terror and Survival in the War Against Reconstruction.” She says the violent mindset that helped end Reconstruction, and ensure that Black and white people were unequal, has bled from the past into the present.