Professor gets downstairs and all of our colleagues. So were just going to jump right into this conversation. The one thing i have to say is i think you can tell, it is urgently important to bring as many schoolkids as possible to come see that incredible exhibit. And that is why i am thrilled that last week, dr. William highs, the superintendent of the School District for philadelphia sat with me on this overlook and announced that the School District and the Constitution Center are launching a program to bring tens of thousands of School Districts to the Constitution Center every year. Wow. They are calling it the constitutional ambassadors program. We will go seeks a port and great kids are going to start these things in their classroom. Come see that civil war exhibit and see the Constitution Center and then connect to classrooms around the country, using our virtual constitutional exchanges for our long conversations about the constitution, moderated by a judge or master teacher. Wow. Thats great. It is an amazing project and we are so excited to share with you. All right. Professor gates does need no introduction. He is author of this best selling book,s the role of reconstruction, White Supremacy and the rise of jim crow, which is a companion book to the series which has just run on pbs. The book is superb. Tells the story with more vivid detail and more powerful images that i have seen before on how the promise of reconstruction, which we saw in the gallery, was brutally thwarted by the south. And, the heroic efforts of africanamerican intellectuals and others to try to resurrect that promise. We are going to jump right into the conversation. But we four we start, we are going to see a clip from the series, let us watch it now. Most of us know that our country fought a civil war in the 1860s. The Lessons Learned afterward what came afterward. The chaotic, exhilarating and ultimately devastating period known as reconstruction. Did you ever study reconstruction in school . No. A paragraph or two. We never really studied it. I didnt learn anything about reconstruction. Reconstruction second founding of our country. Overnight, people who had been defined as property take leadership positions in the south. This is an incredibly heady moment. Kind of like barack obama becoming president. But, those black folks had no idea of the cliff they were heading towards. Reconstruction produced a violent backlash. A racist backlash. I want us to tell the truth about her history. Not to punish america. I want to liberate us. But we cant get to the liberation if we dont acknowledge what weve done. We as a nation are still undergoing the process of reconstruction. You might say it never ended. Were still trying to come to terms with the consequences of the end of slavery in this country. This is a chapter our history that has been misrepresented and misunderstood. It is time that we acknowledged the true story and complete the work of reconstruction. Thank you. I want to correct one thing that he said. He said every school child in philadelphia should see this exhibition. Every school child because we never really have dealt with the issues raised by reconstruction. Thank you so much for that. I learned so much for that interactive, too. I will ask you about what you learn. But also, what you want americans to know about the reconstruction amendments themselves. 13th, 14th and 15th amendment. One of the most interesting thing. The 13th amendment abolished slavery. Most people know it now because david do biarnaise documentary, who didnt know before. So, because we were raised to think the emancipation proclamation abolished slavery. And of course, it didnt. Suck i think maybe half 1 million formerly enslaved people were able to get behind the union lines, and therefore, gained their freedom before the end of the civil war. But, the institution of slavery was only abolished by the ratification of the 13th amendment. The 14th, as you said so eloquently, the equal protection clause, and birthright citizenship. Have you ever wonder what birthright citizenship came from . Charles sumner and his colleagues were trying to figure out, what is the status of these people who have been property for a quarter of the millennia . A quarter of a millennia. And, they came up with birthright citizenship, which was brilliant, actually. And then, finally, that is 1868. Then finally, the ratification of the fifth amendment, which effectively gave black men the right to vote. It said that race could not be used to prevent or prohibit any american from voting. But, what is very curious about the 15th amendment, is that, black people in the south, who had been formerly enslaved and then freed in the 10 or 11 confederate states, got the right to vote 3 years before. This is a surprise to me, when i started doing research for what became our series. And it was a surprise i think for most of you. That if you were a former slave, or had been free in the south, it was one of the four reconstruction amendments that gave black men the right to vote. And that was what we call the first green of summer. The freedom summer of 1867, 180 point 5 of all eligible black men in 10 of the 11 confederate states, registered to vote. But, here is the kicker. You know how we demonize the south, as opposed to the north, and we have a fantasy they lived 30 miles from where i was born. Determines the amount of stability in my family. It is now in West Virginia but it was in virginia at that time. And my grandfather, actually fought in the american revolution. Because of him my brother, are members of the sons of the american revolution. Go figure. Not exactly a predominately black organization. You know what im talking about. Hold this in mind. West virginia becomes a state and joined the union in the middle of the civil war. It becomes a state june 20 1863. And my meager ancestors had cousins just across the border around winchester, virginia. Those cousins who had been enslaved got the right to vote three years before my free ancestors got the right to vote because in the north, whiteman could only vote in the new england states, and in the state of new york if you satisfy the 250 property requirement. Isnt that amazing. It is so shocking. But it is true. And even when West Virginia became a state, they refused to give black men in West Virginia, they did not give like people that we will talk about a handful of people. They refused to give them the right to vote. Those for reconstruction acts, that really laid the groundwork for citizenship, and for the right to vote. I first studied reconstruction, i didnt study it at all in high school. In piedmont West Virginia. But i studied it at yale. My sophomore year i took a two semester survey course introduction to afroAmerican History. We were afroamericans at that time. The professor, who went on to get a pulitzer for his biography of ulysses s grant, had us read w eb do voice book black reconstruction published in 1935. It was radical, because it challenged the school of historians at Columbia University and they were part and parcel of the mythology of reconstruction being a dismal failure and embarrassment to the history of american democracy. And dubois took on that school. And the chief consultant to our series is so ironic that he is our leading reconstruction historian, at Columbia University, its almost as if, hes about to publish his 10th book of reconstruction. On the 13th and 14th and 15 the minutes. Which will be out in september. It is a personal mission for him to refute the terribly racist claims made by the dunning school, his own predecessors in the History Department at columbia and set the record straight. So he had us read duboiss book on reconstruction and a book by logan. Most of you have not heard of rayford logan. He was the third or fourth black man to get a phd in history from harvard. At one time he was engaged to patricia k2 is my great aunt. Im very biased about rayford logan. He wrote a book called the betrayal of the niekro. It is about this. Immediately following reconstruction. Reconstruction people argue about it, 1865 to 1877. So duboiss book ends in 1877, logans book begins in 1877. And that is the period of the rollback to reconstruction. It takes a while to roll it back. Blackman had an enormous amount of power. Black people were the majority, South Carolina, mississippi, louisiana, almost a majority in florida and alabama, and, florida, alabama, and georgia. There were 16 black elected to congress between 1870 and 1877 including two United States senators. In South Carolina, the speaker of the house, one of the great moments of the film, i go to jim clyburns office and he has all the reconstruction congressman on his wall. You could do a whole black history lesson. Systematically, stepbystep, the redemption nests, the former confederates, rose again. And they disenfranchised those blackman. And they did it in such a clever way. What are you going to do . Your 13th and 14th and 15th the minutes are ratified you cant get rid of the. But you can go around them. Starting in 1890 was something called the mississippi. The state constitutions, unfolded over the next 16 years, and each of the former confederate states. Thats when they established poll taxes, literacy tests, apprehension tests, that only law professor could possibly understand. You want to know how dramatically effective these conventions were . Louisiana, a majority black state, before their state constitutional convention, had 130,000 blackman registered to vote. The new constitution was ratified in 1898, by 1904, that number of 130,000 black men registered to vote, had been reduced to 1342. There were 2000 black men elected to office according to him, during the reconstruction. The last reconstruction congressman, george henry white, bid farewell to the congress in 1901. And there would not be another black man elected to the congress until 1929 when oscar depree of chicago is elected to congress, how is elected . Because all those black people took part in the great migration, went for mississippi , particularly to chicago. Went for mississippi to the north and because of the 15th amendment, they have the right to vote. And so they vote a northerner in to the congress. My introduction to reconstruction cut was coterminous with an introduction to its rollback. And that is why we made a four hour series about reconstruction, the great height that black people achieved, just out of slavery. And the moment when lincolns desire for a new birth of freedom was realized. The first experiment with interracial democracy. I said the 13th was ratified, in 1865, the ku klux klan was invented in december 1865. There were eight massacres major between 1866 and 1876. Starting in memphis. In hamburg South Carolina in 1876. This was not an in trouble. The ku klux klan hearings and all these volumes, are online up. You can read them. That is the closest we have come in this country to a truth and reconciliation commission. Grant sent troops to suppress the ku klux klan. And they all these people had been victimized, by them, because theyve been trying to vote. Women were , black men were lynched, they were beaten. They were threatened. They were even bribed. Or there were offers of bribes to keep them from voting. Because they had so much power. I think that the manifestation, the expression of that power not only scared the daylights out of the south, i dont think the north was ready for all of that black power. The north was complicit us with the rollback reconstruction. Certainly you can see signs by 1872, 1873 is the first Great Depression called the panic, the panic of 1873. Until the Great Depression started in 1929, it was called the Great Depression. Do we really need to protect the slaves . Are they free . Can they stand on their own feet . How are you going to enslave people for a quarter of a millennium, 250 years and expect them to stand on their own feet. After a mere 12 years. Thats exactly what happened. The southern compromise, president ial elections 1876, was deadlock, in 1877, the compromise, one of the agreements was federal troops, the few remaining troops protecting black peoples rights to vote, would be withdrawn and black people would be on their own. And the Supreme Court was complicit us. 1876, cruikshank decision, and the deathknell, they argue about when it was over, it had a funeral, it was basically a funeral. And a big church in washington, 1883, right after the Supreme Court said that the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which established a quality, social equality as it was called in, black people could write in streetcars, stay in hotels, etc. The Supreme Court said that was unconstitutional. Frederick douglass, former United States senator, john mercer langston, richard t greener, the first black graduate of harvard, all gathered in the church and it was packed just like this. And langston spoke. They just said how could the country do this . How could they abandon us . How could they throw us to the wolves. In the way that they have done. Dubois said famously, if you want to think about the rise and fall of black freedom, the slave went free, for the brief moment in the sun, and then moved back toward slavery again. And that is the history of the rise and fall of reconstruction. [ applause ] thank you for the most extinct, riveting and incredibly moving account of the rise and fall of reconstruction. To think another funeral was held for reconstruction after the civil wars, after the decision is stunning. You this picture in the book of the first colored senators and representatives in new york, and what is so incredible, with how central the right to vote was. Now i understand why Frederick Douglass said the right to vote was most important of the group because African Americans were a majority in so many states and why the restoration of the right to vote was the core of redemption. Tell us more about how the racist redemption based backlash eviscerated the right to vote, the Supreme Court decisions, violence, and discriminatory laws. Speckled you do me a favor . Can you hold that up . This is from 1872. This lithograph. In the back maybe you cant see it. The first colored senator in the u. S. Representatives, during the depression, the federal writers project sent writers to interview former slaves. People who wouldve been very young. By the end of the civil war. Still alive in the 1930s. In these very small, often they were former homes occupied by slaves on plantations. They found grease covered faded copies of that 1812 lithograph. You know the way, the jesus and Martin Luther king, now theres jesus and Martin Luther king and brock obama. They had that lithograph. I study that, that lithograph. Three of those men were born free. And we tend to forget, and one was english. Robert Brown Elliott was born free. In liverpool. There was so much action, so much excitement about reconstruction. That elliott shows up in boston, born free liverpool, educated, he is part of the british navy, shows up in boston, all this opportunity in South Carolina, hears about that and goes to South Carolina, richard hurricane had been moved from the church from new york to revitalize mother emmanuel. That is where the nine martyrs were so horribly murdered that day. Richard harvey came, we are pretty entrepreneur, started a black newspaper and hired elliott to work for him. And then elliott runs for the state legislature and for congress. When richard greener graduates from harvard in 1870, endless opportunities, does he go to new york . Boston . Philadelphia . No. He goes to charleston South Carolina. That is where the action was. We cant imagine that today. You cant imagine how much promise and energy and optimism , think about it. Think about what that was like if you had been enslaved up to 1865. Endless horizons. And then boom, within 12 years, all gone. Horrible to contemplate. I was born in 1950. I often think, im sure you do too, but it wouldve been like to be black with the same capacities that we have now, you would not have gone to oxford, i would not of gone to cambridge, i would not of gone to yale, where would you gone . Historically black lincoln university. Right on my brother. Of course you were. We would not have had those opportunities. And i could imagine the heartbreak, when you read the speeches made that day at that church in 1883, and douglas went to lincoln hall, three days later and made another speech, about the betrayal of any girl, and you ask why would they do this. What remained the leading export , cotton. Somebody had to pick back on. And we were moving from an economy where labor was free ostensibly. As performed by slaves. And it needed to be replaced to maximize profits. Neoslavery. Sharecropping. Vagrancy laws. Three black man, for black ministry they could be arrested. Put on the chain gang. Those images of chain gangs, thats where they come from. Between 1889 and 19, 1930 or so, we thousand 700 black men are lynched. In the name of many, not all, accused of. White women. Booker t. Washington pointed out, nobody was accused of a white woman during the civil war, in the south, when the masters were away fighting in the mail slaves were back on the plantations. Think about it. Isnt that curious . Lynching was a trope that was invented as part of a larger rights white supremacist rhetorical superstructure. One of the fascinating things that i figured out when we were making the series, when i was writing the book especially, this was the time Americans First social media war. It was a battle between these consecutive images of black people as thieves, liars, venal, sambo are. We call it. This book is full of, every chapter, is followed by a visual essay comprised of these horrible images which we all have seen. Its called memorabilia now. But black skin, thick red lips, white eyes, with black pupils. And wild hair. And these were black men stealing things, eating watermelon, black people, male and female, and every exaggerated humiliating form to which you can represent the human being. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of these images are produced after the fall of reconstruction and particularly in the 1890s. Why 1890s . Technological access, chroma photography is invented, early in the century but it becomes cheaper and 1890s. So that you can widely distribute more color images and advertisements, postcards, posters, on games. It was possible for a middle class white family, by the time your alarm clock went off, these images were everywhere, you hear the alarm clock and you see sambo staring at you in the alarm clock. You put your feet down and bedroom slippers, and there would be a sambo or aunt jemima figure staring up that had been embroidered into the bedroom slippers. You go to have breakfast, and your tea cozy was a sample image, youre a cup the sample image. You go to work, and you come home, one of the favorite parlor games, 10 little leaguers. That was one of the favorite parlor games in america at that time. Everywhere, a white person saw an image of a black person, it was a sambo. It was of this racist caricature. The whole point was to create subliminal hypnotic effect. So that my cally, now departed, barbara johnson, who is a genius, wants to find a stereotype as an already red text. Think about how brilliant that is. An already red text, what does that mean . I can look at you, you are black, i dont see you. I see sambo. I see a jemima. I know exactly who you are. Because the society has contacted an image superimposed on who you really are. And you are forced to live up to or down to however you might want to put it. That racist image of yourself. What did black people do . They fought back with their own concept called the new niekro. The educated black people said, we cant win this war, maybe what you are saying is true about the uneducated black people. But we are educated, refined, the concept starts about 1890. I wrote the book and said it started in 1894 and a scholar wrote to me last week and said no, it started 1877 and ive got the essay. So i said okay, now it starts in 1877. But the point is, this concept of sambo, they fought back with the concept of the new negro. The new negro was everything the socalled old negro or sambo or uncle tom was not. The voice even globalize the new negro. Dubois the first man to get a phd from harvard and history. The first black man. The curated the negro exhibit and took a 363 photographs of black people, many of whom were not even visibly black. Because he wanted to show the genetic diversity of the africanamerican community, and they are all upperclass black people. He is trying to defeat this racist image that had been created by the redemption this movement. It was chouinard, it was true in novels. It was true in folklore. Even if you read Joel Chandler harrisons uncle remus tales, she preserved traditional black folktales but sometimes she put words in uncle remus is mouselike, our people dont need the right to vote or we dont need all that education. Thats a real mistake, a waste of energy. It was true of the social sciences and with racial side. You know about the science of eugenics. Louis agassiz, those horrible deck area types that he made, a person who claims that they are descendent, is suing harvard for using those. But he was a professor of zoology he was a stone cold races. That was the only way you can put it. All these discourses, social sciences, art, literature, politics, in order to put that genie back in the land. The genie of black freedom. The genie of black masculinity. The genie of the power of the vote. And it was devastatingly effective. [ laughter ] [ applause ] that could have been otherwise . If the courts have ruled differently . If the election to come out the other way . The copper mines of 1876 hadnt happened . Could it, otherwise . What were the grounds of hope and tell us about the title of the book as well. And the song that inspired it. One time when i asked, madeleine albright, and condoleezza rice, are both on the board. It was about the time when resident obama was opening up cuba. That open for about five minutes. And was shot again. My wife happens to be cuban. The cubans citizen and a nestorian. So im very partial q but now i can go as a Family Member so nobody can stop me. I asked madeleine, they were debating. I asked them which is more important, and i used cuba as an example. Giving people the right to vote or giving them economic freedom. And predictably, as you might imagine, condoleezza said, one person one vote. First. Dont open up cuba unless everyone can vote. Madeleine said, economic opportunity. Economic independence. You give them that, the middle class will rise and sooner or later, they will demand their rights. We can see this in china. And a couple other places. I went to china in 1993, there were 1 billion bicycles. I went back 10 years later in the rebellion bmws. And i couldnt breathe either. Its like a time machine going back to london. It rained on he went, oh, thats the sky. Environmental controls had not yet been implemented. Why do i raise that . Because i used to wonder, remember booker t. Washingtons speech, when he said, economics is more important than politics. We are willing to forgo the right to vote. If we can develop economics. If we can be indispensable to the society if a person, a tradesman, tradesman, cressman, kratz woman, is indispensable why would you discriminate against the best brick mason in philadelphia . Or locksmith . Or whenever it might be. That was booker t. Washington. But he was, Frederick Douglass said the most important thing was the right to vote. I love teaching. Thats my day job. I taught a course in reconstruction and redemption, phd is in english. I teach in english and in africanamerican studies. This is the concept of the new degrom leading up to the harlem renaissance in the 1920s, originally called the new negro renaissance. I asked the students, give me a scenario where booker t. Washington, Frederick Douglass, make a case for booker t. Washington. A lot of people do. They will say look at china. If black people had developed economically, but, what washington was training people for, was not really going to put them in bleeding, strong positions within a soontobe 20thcentury economy. He was training the more for 19 century model of industry. And trade. And many of the lynchings, many of the lynchings, though they were ostensibly in the name of a black man attempting to or a white woman, when ida b wells started investigating them in 1892, and other people investigated including walter white in the 1920s. It turned out it was economic competition. Ida b wells best friend had a grocery store, a market, and across the street was a white man. And kids were playing marbles, black and white kids, they got into a fight and it led to this huge conflagration and the guy who was jealous of the black man essentially ignited the community in memphis to lynch the man, very welleducated, who it started that store, with a couple of his partners. And that example repeated itself throughout the south and at the heart of the socalled lynchings. Could economic, 40 acres and a mule . You all know about that . Spike lees Production Company is called 40 acres and a mule. That wouldve been a radical transformation in Property Ownership without a doubt. The concept was plantations would be divided up into 40 acre plots. And given to the former slaves. You can read a book by, and the georgia sea islands, liberated by the union army early in the war, there were plantations that were divided up and black people were given parcels of land to develop. The person who singlehandedly rolled back in that policy was Andrew Johnson. And Andrew Johnson sent general howard, a hero of the civil war, to those black People Living on the georgia sea islands, to tell them, right off of South Carolina that they had to get the land back to the former masters who had enslaved them. Its horrible. That was a horrible thing. They never had a chance to own land. I think by 1900 20 of the africanamericans in the south owned some kind of plan. And that was not enough to create an economic base for the middle class that would have sufficient economic clout to make a real difference. But, without the ballot, those economic rights could not be protected. In the debate between condoleezza and madeleine, in terms of specifically black americans and the civil war, the most important thing that couldve happened, change the fate of interracial democracy in america, is protecting the black mans right to vote. And only men could vote. The people who were trying to roll back the civil war, understood that that was the vulnerable point. If we can take away the right to vote, by intimidating them, discouraging them, threatening them, killing them,them. And then finally after 1890, taking it back through these dubious conventions then we can put them back on the plantations. Then we can, they were slaves, they can call limps slaves, they were slaves by another name. Not only that, starting with the confederacy in 1894, they published guides to textbooks, about the civil war and reconstruction. Lewis rutherford, backcheck me. Fax check me. I tell mike graduate course, her book called the measuring rod had 20 principles. And if any books that the librarian was considering purchasing for a teacher was considering using in the classroom, if any of those books violated any one of these 20 principles, the order was, do not buy it, do not use it. Do not teach it. You know what was in there . The civil war was fought to free the slaves. Jefferson davis, any book that said anything bad about Jefferson Davis you could not use. That the slaves were mistreated, but they had not been happy in their condition, you could not you do it. As a book. Her common core cut was a lost cause. That was the beginning of the lost cause mythology that culminated in physical form with all of those confederate monuments. All those confederate monuments, not literally everyone, were built in the 1890s and the early years of the 20th century, they were the physical manifestation of redemption of the rise of White Supremacy. And when i heard about the murders at mother emmanuel church, at first i thought that anybody who would pray, i did the last interview with the reverend, anybody who would pray with the people, for an hour, and then systematically kill them had to be deranged. It must be an unfortunate and sad, act by someone who was suffering insane mental conditions. But he was a white supremacist. He knew what he was doing, he picked that church because it was the heart of the black community. In reconstruction. And he was quoted as saying, they are stealing our women. They are taking our job opportunities. The same kinds of lies and heinous accusations that the made about jewish people in the 1930s. That is the logic of White Supremacy or the illogic. If it could happen to black people, with the sanction of the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments, so close to the civil war, 750,000 americans died, if it could happen then. To us. To our ancestors. It can happen anywhere and it can happen again. And that is why we have to be vigilant, that is why i did the series. To remind everybody that the right you think are permanent and inviolable can be snatched away at any time and those of us who love liberty and justice, that, we have to fight to defend those rights. [ applause ] [ applause ] [ applause ] [ cheering ] specs [ applause ] [ applause ] [ applause ] thank you. [ laughter ] lectures and history. American artifacts. Real america. The civil war. Oral histories. The presidency. And special event coverage about our nations history. Enjoy American History tv now and every weekend on cspan 3. For weekend this month we feature American History tv programs is a preview of what is available every weekend on c span three. Tonight, a look at a recent Conference Held at Purdue University titled remaking american political history, we will future programs for the gathering focusing on u. S. Politics and government from the earliest days of the american republic. American history tv airs at 8 pm eastern on cspan 3. For university of california irvine professor brook thomas delivered a talk title the politics of popular portrayals of Andrew Johnsons impeachment professor thomas discussed three examples, the 19th 1905 novel the clansman , the 1942 hollywood film, tennessee johnson, and the impeachment story as told by senator john f. Kennedy, in his 1957 Pulitzer Prize winning book, profiles in courage. This event was part of a symposium on reconstruction hosted by the u. S. Capital historical society. Brooke thomas is a professor in the English Department at the university of california irvine. I think you just took emeritus status . Which means he now has more time to write and more time to talk and more time to educate all of us. And i am honored that he has come here