Transcripts For CSPAN3 Teaching Reconstruction 20240713

Constitution. You can hear more from robert byrd who served in the u. S. Senate for more than 50 years, this sunday at 5 00 eastern youre on American History tv on cspan3. At the annual Southern Historical association meeting, a group of professors discussed challenges and strategy for teaching the reconstruction era. They talk about sources and trying to find a balance between National History and local history in survey courses. [laughter] aaron good morning. My name is aaron dean, and i would like to welcome everybody to our panel this morning on teaching reconstruction. We are happy to have cspan here, which is not normally part of these panels. We will get going right on time. I will also explain first we will use this morning and then get out of the way. I will offer just a couple of to kind ofy remarks set things up, and then introduce our panelists, and then they will each talk for a short bit, we are hoping within the fiveminute range and i did not bring a cudgel, but every one seems pleasant. [laughter] will raise some questions, and then turn it all to you all, and hopefully you will left questions you want to ask of them. I have questions that we have been communicating before this, and it does seem like a Good Opportunity with the full house, which is what i would say we nine 30 panel to work through different ways to teach reconstruction. Well, wel also say do not have a passing mic, i think. We will probably be repeating questions as you will stand up, because we want to make sure that questions get on, for cspan people, that they can hear the questions as well. As historians in the civil war era are aware that reconstruction is defined as three times as much time as the civil war itself, though i do not know how many dedicate three times as much teaching space. I am certainly guilty of this. In the u. S. Survey course, it usually comes at the end of an exhaustive fall semester or in the opening moments of the spring, so the result is kind of a curious compression of the teaching of reconstruction, and this happens, i think, despite the importance of reconstruction to all of the great reformations happening in the middle of life in the middle decades of the 19th century. I think part of the challenge for teaching it lies in recognizing that reconstruction is both a process, political and economic and material, as well as cultural and, in many respects, emotional, and it is also a period during which there is a great deal happening. And so when we compress that, we undermine and undervalue reconstructions importance. Getting ready for this, i did a little back of the envelope calculation, so according to me and wikipedia, the u. S. Army has been an reconstruction mode for longer than it has been in fighting mode, so i count 60 years of active campaigning and 61 of active reconstruction, and i am not counting what could arguably be the decades of the philippines. How muchs no telling does not include any of the work done after the spanishamerican and filipino wars. This suggests the importance of reconstruction not just as a buttigieg following the as a period following the civil war, but that the american nation has been involved in reconstruction and doing reconstruction around the world for a very long time. Nowhere is it more true, as we then what americans flirted with a biracial democracy, created the modern partisan political order, constructed home grown terrorist newence, constructed a armed army against the plains indians, and these are issues that i think all of the panelists and you will will try taking into how we as teachers try to bring these elements together. Our task is not to make coherent sense of that. We are not trying to build a new synthesis of reconstruction here. Our job as a panel focusing on teaching reconstruction is introduce students to these open up and to conversations and help them find their way to answers, if we can also create a new synthesis, that would be great, and then we can coauthor a volume that will explain that. I suspect and said what we will do a sort of talk about it and open up opportunities here. We have a great group of people, so i wanted to reduce them and let them talk. I will introduce them in the order they are seated here. David pryor is an assistant professor of American History at the university of new mexico. His research and teaching focuses on the International Dimension of the American Civil War era. He is the author of between freedom and progress the lost world of reconstruction politics, just published from lsu, which is locally in the book exhibit, so look for that. Only last year the editor of reconstruction in a globalizing i can recommend, which is an edited collection looking at the International Dimensions of reconstruction. He is working on a second edited collection of reconstruction empire, and is in the early stages of a book on the adoption of the term reconstruction. Next to david is dana bird, a scholar of american art and material culture and an artstant professor of history. Most recently, she was the coauthor of with Frank H Goodyear of the catalogue camera , homer, and the photography, art, and painting. She is working on a manuscript. And artifacts of the reconstruction era transformation we spend way too much time at the southern on text, so it is great to have. Omeone here to look at images next to dana is amy taylor, the professor of history at the university of kentucky. She is the author of several works, most recent of which is embattled freedom. This is an outstanding book, and you do not have to take my word for it to anyone a slew of prizes last year, including a ground prize, which she will be honored this evening. Next to amy is lee williams, the scholar of africanAmerican Civil War, reconstruction history. Lee works as a Site Specialist thethe state of florida, at Armstrong Atlantic state university, and serves as a trustee at the Historic Savannah Foundation in savannah, georgia. He is the editor of the forthcoming peoples guide to nashville, which is a series of really creative local public histories that will be, i think, a value to those of us who travel around and want to do weird history things when we get to new cities. He is completing a biography on who was c gibbs, floridas africanamerican secretary of state during reconstruction. So it is a great panel, and we will look forward to your questions. Thank you. Pryor sure thing. Few quickg to read a thoughts that i composed over the last couple of days, so thank you, of course, for the opportunity to participate in this roundtable to it i will focus my very brief comments on opening up questions on how we frame reconstruction when we teach it. Most of what i do is conforms to al approachnvention to focus on civil rights. Questionsind the haunting me at night, or things that i ponder as i teach. The first question is is reconstruction inescapably history . I do not mean the notion of national identit, federal law, and states authority it clearly is but in a deeper sense, is it also the story of america as a coherent and unitary thing that moves through history . Are we, after the transnatural turn, still historians of a nation, and should we present ourselves to students as such . I can see good causes for answering affirmatively, including a liberal integrationist narratives of the United States, focusing on the quality of civil rights, and the centrality of unification to a literal meaning of the word reconstruction, to take a page from mark summers. I do have some concerns about the nation as a presumptive framework for comprehending any history, and especially if it means we are taking ourselves as scholars and teachers to be americans addressing americans. Im not so confident that we really know what and how often our students think of national identity. Along with it, i am cagey about the idea that we should use our students presumptive identities to try to make a historical narratives emotionally compelling to them. I would wager that we may be better off teaching reconstruction is something that took place at a time when the idea of the nation was pervasive and contested rather than as something that is about the nation. This leads me to my second question, which is do we get at the otherness of the past when teaching reconstruction . Are powerful linkages between now and then, including the statesanctioned murder of africanamericans, ornate versions of White Supremacy and campaigns to black voting, all of which warrants attention, but i also warrants, when teaching undergraduates, to balance these connections with the sense of a goal that separates today from the mid19th century. I have recently been teaching the cultural history ku klux , and i was struck by how well it caption captures both te continuities and the gulfs that existed now event. To paraphrase one students rhetorical question and response borrowing, so basically the klan was founded band geeks and furries . I wonder to what extent we address the role religion playe in shaping the meaning of emancipation or how sincere midcentury conservatives could be in their concern over the growth of the federal governments power. Third, the last point, really quickly, is what do we do with the names . Having taught in the south, the midwest, and the southwest, im not sure the term reconstruction conveys anything noble about the freedom of equality to most students, and how could it . Early in my research, my suspension is that the term reconstruction stuck precisely because we did not at the time of allah rise the struggle for africanamerican freedom. An 1860s come at least the term had to core meetings, nationa reification and socialistic change, neither explain africanamerican rights in positive terms. I think there is good reason why scholars of reconstruction often seek alternative or supplementary names, such as the second founding, or americas unfinished revolution. We are not satisfied with the terms of our past, which is why i think students find the term reconstruction confusing at best. Prof. Byrd good morning. I suppose i am next. Collegeat about a one college, a small , and i feel ite i should apologize for the weather. Idea ofo talk about the the upper nets of the past. I really like to bring up questions about reconstruction. Web things i found surprising when i first moved to maine is apparently the civil war both began in brunswick, because that is where Harry Beecher stowe wrote uncle toms kevin, and ended in brunswick because of Joshua Lawrence chamberlain. Very helpful to use that information to help them sort of transition to thinking more broadly about the period of reconstruction. I would say in my teaching ive tried my best to get students in front of original works of art, and that seems to be one of the how to help them understand different, to return to your question, our time is from the past. I know that not every institution has these sorts of archives readily available, but i would ask your questions about the institution archives, i have found great partners and librarians to work with special collections, and they are a treasure trove of information there. Do you know how many of your a lawns fought in the civil war and on which side . Do we know what the story was when they returned to campus during reconstruction . Do we know the ways in which reconstruction touched our campuses . Keep my teaching that local or i had one opportunity to teach with a colleague in history and that was the next ordinary opportunity was an ask ordinary opportunity to help me understand how much value there wasnt having our disciplines meet each other and ask questions, so i was very surprised, as example, to work with a literature historian, because we typically talk at the art of the era to talkion about the natural look, a great deal about metaphors, lots of of children as a way of rethinking the unification of the nation, and so that art, particularly painting, taking on a really more national view, but in literature, that story is quite different, right . We often think about something as local color taking on an particular importance during rey construction and im thinking of charles chestnuts work. So that is what i do, juxtaposing those sources against the historical record to help the students have a better understanding of the past, to get them to understand the choices and the questions and experiences that everyday people had. I know that you all are mostly historians, so i do not go to deeply in conversation about art, but they are are all these questions about form that really begin to emerge during reconstruction as well, and these questions during the art of reconstruction are as simple as how does one represent freedom . Representations of african paintings and sculptures and photography before the civil war were relatively rare. During the civil war, they become this great topic of visual interest, but then what does freedom look like in my work in blackness is always stood in for the enslaved. Emergequestions begin to about how to accomplish that, and we will talk about how does the africanamerican sculptor who mostly works with Something Like marble, how you create something that celebrates the joy, so these are the questions that i try to bring out, again, the sort of local approach, ensure that we cap into the bounty of archival collections, even if they are more local, and think about the different sorts of disciplines like history, art, and literature. Prof. Taylor good morning. Teach reconstruction as part , athe u. S. Survey course dedicated course on the civil war and reconstruction, and i usually start the semester, the first day of class with the survey of students, asking them essentially what they know, what they care about, and so forth. I find that that is particularly important when it comes to the civil war piece of it, because they do bring a lot into the classroom with them. But the survey ends with a question, what do you want to know most . What do you want to learn most this semester . What i have noticed is increasingly students are writing reconstruction, and i found that really interesting. At first, i thought well, i have got some diligent students. Reconstruction has fallen through the crux of the survey, and they want to fill the gaps, but then i started asking why, and i started hearing things like it seems like it was really i know it was flawed, but im not sure why, and another, i heard there were black senators how . So underlying these comments was a sense of confusion that a lot of students bring it to the class about reconstruction. They know something about it already. It has not exactly fallen through the crocs, but they have not figured out exactly how to wrap their minds around it. Through what was coming in those comments was the sense that something important happens during reconstruction. This was an important period, and i think, as i thought about it, i think it had something probably to do with where we are in the 21st century, as we hear political commentators and analysts of 21st century politics, you know, referring to reconstruction as a Reference Point for trying to process some of the things that are going on today, and then of course there is the recent reconstruction documentary, theres all the really excellent local preservation going on and the work of the National Park service and everything, so i think our current political culture and climate is telling students that they should care about this period, and that explains some of the comments that i was getting. Now, one of the advantages of teaching reconstruction relative to, say, the civil war, is that students dont at least in my experience dont tend to bring in some of those myths we need to break down or some of those entrenched narratives that are distorting the past, like we have with the civil war, but and that was probably a whole different story 20 or 30 years ago, but today, i dont encounter that. But if there is one preconception that i see students bringing into the classroom, it is the sense that the end of reconstruction and the rise of jim crow was somehow inevitable. That, in their minds, of course once slavery ended, white southerners would try to institute a second slavery, and of course they would succeed, like a state of conflict. Ofs reflects a state pessimism and our times, and also a prevailing narrative that there was a Straight Line from slavery to jim crow to the 20th century and mass incarceration, and of course, a lot of students think about the past in terms of inevitability. In themy colleagues Education School calls it the train hurtling down the past view of the past, and it is a lot easier to hop on the train, but the failure is also with the hunch that something important happen with reconstruction, too. If it was never will, should we see it as important or not that an africanamerican man named hiram was a u. S. Senator . So clearly my students come and maybe yours, have posed not just a reconstruction challenged by historical challenge, to . O . Andvel of deeper thinking, opportunities of think more selfconsciously about the pitfalls of genealogy and agency and contingency instead, so as a result, some of my most invigorating classroom discussions about the past in general and how it works have come in this period of reconstruction. I think it is a really Good Laboratory of historical thinking. I will briefly mention one way i sort of dig into all of that with the students, and i think it touches a little bit on what dana was just talking about. I confront all of this head on by trying to get students thinking about place very specifically. The way that particular places experienced reconstruction, and i have all sorts of reasons for that, but i encourage students to choose a town or county a semester long and by athens looks on one question, how reconstruction was revolutionary in that place. A revolution, he argued, but unfinished, but i think it remains a pretty potent one, it asked them to do to look at change. When they discover the federal census, for example, an increase in the rate of black Property Ownership by 1880, four when they read in the newspaper about an election of black candidates with some support from white southerners. So naturally, the students begin are these signs of progress possible, how significant were they, and they are situated on the micro level. They dig into the variables of time and place to try to explain this phenomenon, recognizing the agency of individuals in relation to larger structures of political and economic change. They also than, with all of these elements, may have tools to look ahead. Why didnt this progress or stall the process of a white supremacist in the south . Could things have been different, or why exactly are things the way they are . They never do a complete analysis, and they are not writing a book this is all really suggested but they can look at newspapers, Freedmens Bureau records, federal census, personal papers to be pretty suggestive, and one thing that is helpful, anchored in a local place, if they can begin to see all of these intersections of the politics and economics and legal developments, as has been discussed already, but see it in a very concrete and grounded way and not so abstract in a and opaque. Some of them leave the semester scratching their head a little bit, but i think that is ok, because we are still doing that ourselves, after all. Thanks. Prof. Williams good morning. Excuse me. As i drove up here from nashville, i thought about how i first encountered reconstruction, how i first taught it, and like most of you, the schoolr drilled into my head, and then we talked andt black reconstruction how the narrative changed over time. Blackh at a historically college now, and as i thought thet how i have taught in past and how i teach it now, it is a lot different, because now i tend to center the experiences in every single conversation that i have about reconstruction. A really interesting spot, nashville, of course we know of its importance in the civil war, right . There are some very powerful reconstruction narratives as well. Wasan Bedford Forrest klan in king of the a hotel not too far from where i teach reconstruction. City,e a fort in the negley,htly fort which was built with conscripted contraband cant in the shadow of this, and that is a reconstruction story as pell, because that camp ends u becoming the Edge Hill Community and we still struggle with some issues in that community that are almost directly linked to reconstruction. I have quite a few students from memphis, who grew up in the south of memphis and know absolutely nothing about the when i teach, so reconstruction now, i face some of the challenges that my colleagues have outlined. Where you are either trying to get it finished at the start of a semester, or i am trying to cram in as much as i can toward the end, but i tried story tot a personal Fisk University was established , and the university that i teach at, during the early days, most of the early professors there were just graduates, and when i teach reconstruction from this vantage lott, i try to focus on a on how African Americans internalized freedom. What did freedom mean . Didnt mean the same thing for them as it did for their former anr enslavers . And more importantly, i asked the students to determine whether another notion of freedoms today coincide with what these people thought about. And then in dealing with klan violence, i try to make that something real, something personal for my students as well. I did not realize this until i canon, but i, um, remember in grad school having to go through all of the kkk they havend at fsu, them in the basement of a library, and you go down there, and youve read, and you come out, and you are feeling bad, and it is just a gloomy environment, but when i began teaching it at tsu, and i noticed some of the names, some of the names of the victims were thatames of the students sat right in front of me, so i began to struggle with how do you teach that just because we have a lot of folks that are interested in genealogy right now, so this story come in many ways, can be a part of their history. Lastly, ideal a lot with outlook memory, right, how we remember the past, what we remember, what we forget, and who makes those decisions. We have a bust of nathan forrestbedford at the statehouse, and i have complained a lot. They do not listen to me. We also have a really obnoxious statue of nathan Bedford Forrest between nashville and cool springs, and he is riding a horse with a pistol. Someone has vandalized it with hot pink paint. [laughter] prof. Williams but i guess where i am challenging our students in our assessment of reconstructionist to think about what we remember about this period, what we forget, and who makes those decisions. And what are the legacies of this period . Aaron thank you. Comments. All for your i am happy to turn this over, if there are people who have questions. There were a lot of connections between what you all said, and i will stall for one minute as chair and take the prerogative and as the strategic question, because a number of you mentioned using the local ,tories and emphasizing place in the 1980s, even the 1990s, emphasizing national politics, certainly i began teaching with then sortramework and of move into the kind of lived experience, and i wonder how you all compressed these stories, because maybe in your assignment, and anna, your dana, your bowdoin. E at about i well, the first thing i do is relieve yourself of that anxiety of coverage, ok, and maybe not everything is youg to get covered, but, know, with the project that i described before, you cannot understand what is going on locally without understanding what is going on in washington, too, so these are not separate, mutually exclusive, or whatever, perspectives, but we talk about what is happening, and i do weave in lectures, and they read selections of stephen hahn, eric garner, and some here who do provide the perspective, and it is a matter of where you are entering a story rather than what piece of it you are breaking off, is how i would say it. F. Williams um, for the the local material, i oftentimes consult Freedmens Bureau records or the clan records themselves, but for larger pictures, for the larger picture, there are some really good monographs. One written by the woman sitting next to me. [laughter] prof. Williams but a work that i found really useful was could either williams they left great marks on me, and in it, she confronts us or she challenges us, rather, to think about the impact of the violence on the victims families. That is something relatively new to me, but it is useful, because we begin to see what occurred during this time as not so much as a challenge, but maybe as a group, as a community. I would echo the use of monographs, certainly. Reconstruction, the civil war and reconstruction, and several different contexts. I have a civil war and reconstruct the class, a slavery and freedom class, and graduate classes, and i almost feel bad between the civil war and reconstruction class and the slavery and freedom class for how i teach the civil war and reconstruction class and slavery and freedom as they do get a little bit of overlap. But i usually use my lectures to do kind of a big picture narrative of national politics, and then i try to take something more monographic, a diary of the Northern New England woman who comes to the sea islands to teach, a very short diary they can get off of google books, a source a very rich source. About the riots, and it is very careful research, kind of a model study. I am blanking on the author, but new orleansthe kidnapping, i apologize to the author, who may be here. [inaudible] no, therer no, no, is that one, but im blanking on the earlier one. [inaudible] prof. Pryor yeah there you go. Thank you. Because it ishat, really hard to get students to dig down into the local element, to, and i also use the Freedmens Bureau papers, the big marilyn projects. Maryland projects. Aaron i will start with mike. Generalat is the use in aaron i will repeat the question, sources or textbooks to use that work well with students. Mike either with war or reconstruction. Prof. Taylor well, i mean, for me, usually i assign selections do aonographs, and that i lot of primary source assignment, so i cannot really just name one or two books that really carry it all for my class, but the ones i mentioned before, stephen hahn, think a chapters from that, and that is what i have found. Terror in the heart of freedom, there are more, and i am leaving people out here i feel bad. What have you done that really pull williams i will Freedmens Bureaus records or records from the kkk reports, and i will a book on the kkk [inaudible] prof. Williams i have i am not familiar with it. But this is what i do, and it works, i think. When power points are usually photograph,being a if they are to text heavy, the students will say well, it is not important, but what i will do as i will take excerpts from it and put it up on the screen, and we will take turns reading it to each other, and i think what it does is it animates the in a way if you will, that looking at it in a pdf for looking at it in a book cannot. We will read it together, and then we will have a discussion about what is this saying, what impact is it having on this man and this family . Sort of to danas point, everybody here has gotten information from the kkk hearings, there is a lot of Accessible Information you can get, as well as institutional histories as well. Celebrating, are since it opens and starts there, i suspect you push that a little bit . Prof. Byrd not so much. It is a starting point, right . Howard papershe come as that helps a great deal, but i find juxtaposition to be so great, why not pare your institutions catalog of studies with catalogs of studies from other institutions to try to balance that with a local anymore national level. One of the things i have had success with in terms of a book is the reproduction of the gardeners of the civil war, which i know is technically a but iwar period thing, understand it as one of the early productions, an attempt to create a visual memory of the students of civil war that to me since two line up a little but more with the reconstruction period, and that is really great. There are 100 images, and i ask students to take one out and replace it with something that they think might be better. That achieves a few things. One comment really forces them to read the text, to think about the text in the context of reconstruction and early memory making. It allows really requires them to thinkide about what they think is important in history, it requires them to carefully look at these images, and they often all take out a picture of pontoon bridge and put in a contraband camp or refugee camp, and they make decisions about what they find to be interesting or compelling and really requires them to make an argument for what is missing and how they would fill in what has been missing. I think dover has a great addition, inexpensive and they write in it, and it is great. Dr. Sheehandean yes. [inaudible] dr. Sheehandean you can stand up. [inaudible] ok, so theandean question is about chronology, and i was wondering this as well, when we get the 1862, a year to begin this, so how do you all, where do you all start, where do you all end, and how do you sort of stagger this . What are the pivotal moments that you identify . Prof. Williams it, um, that is a tough question. This conversation with a historian in town recently about tennessee, when did it end . 1877, have that date, with the compromise, but for tennessee, i would say that things were probably a wrap when governorn was elected in 1870, 1871. Georgia, where most of my people are from, it was pretty much a wrap after the camilla riot. Maybe we can have a conversation about that. Florida, 1877, maybe. I guess the way i deal with this, i say that it ended at different times in different doces, so then what i try to is to focus on certain aspects of it, so we will talk about black politicians, we will talk uce andevels and br others, and then we will have a conversation about whether they were more important than the guy, the black guy who was elected constable in a small county. Aswill talk about Education One of the staples and the pushback against that, and then how it was often times used to secure later. I do not know if im quite answering your question, but i will try to be clear here. I stagger it. I say that it ended in different places at different times. The way i get around it is i kind of treat it dramatically in a way, so we look at maybe education, violence, the establishment of independent black churches, which i said this kind of tongueincheek the other day, but i actually meant it, that a lot of the churches monumentsf the old that we have to reconstruction. That is the way i deal with it. Prof. Pryor i think that is a very good question. My line on this tends to be that part of the problem is the word reconstruction means two Different Things at the time. It refers to both the reunification of the country and the reformation of the south, and that reflects the history of the civilefore war that was adopted for conversations in europe, including about the and,nstruction of pol but also radical socialist arguments about changing society from the ground up. So i do try to i should probably do more on this, but i actually try to introduce that to my students as one of the things that makes reconstruction so confusing. I guess i try not to make a lot of assumptions about who my students are and what they do usuallyt i assumed that they are a little bit confused about reconstruction, because i think most scholars are. So i do try to unpack that some. I think there is a very good case, and mark summers book, that reconstruction, and ways, it does not end bank in 1877, the, 1875, when you have collapse in the house, and they cannot legislate. You can also make the case that if reconstruction means your whencation, it is over the states are back in the union for many. I try to unpack that a little and run with the way in which the term is confusing, looking at different moments, but also in terms of turning points. I spent a lot of time, in the class im teaching right now, i mean, i think some of the really key moments are understanding the failure of what is sometimes called voluntary or self reconstruction, and how the former confederate leadership after the civil war, politically and rhetorically, shoot themselves in the foot by sending a lot of arch conservatives, trying to send them to congress under johnsons plan, and how that opened up ground for the radical compromises, sweeping legislation. I spend a lot of time on that as a real turning point. But then i think the process moving forward from there really does vary so much based on locality in terms of local politics, and it is hard to have a single story. I do a full lecture on the construction in South Carolina to try to get the local in there as well. And so that is how i try to tackle that. Prof. Taylor i teach at an art history department, so i think i am pretty free of chronology, that talk about content amy raised earlier, and i try to decide what precisely do i expect the students will walk away with, was sort of knowledge and i like to, think they will be a different places, but in reality, it is unlikely that they will, so i try to focus attention on creating experiences that force them to dive deeply will also thinking about the National Hope that they hold onto some of that information. That is at least what i tell myself, to make myself feel a little bit better about releasing some content, but it is challenging for some. Prof. Taylor i will just add briefly, for the reasons everybody has already said, in our scholarship, we havent there is no way we can present it in a settled way. I find a difference between my 100 level survey course and the rest. In the survey cours, i am willing to create some boundaries, because i am hoping they will take other courses and then revise it. In that class, i present reconstruction of a process that coexists with the war and then ands into its own, in 1865 1877, but the rest, i think students can handle a little bit of chaos when it comes to this question. Question to even talk to students about, it is a good one to get them thinking about ization. Rtance of lanaf period prof. Sheehandean it is also a good way to disrupt your comment about multiple chronologies and multiple levels of experience, so they can immediately know there is not a single end, you know, we do not experience history in a secular kind of way. All right, there were other hands that were starting to go up. [inaudible] prof. Sheehandean so the question is about the silences or the erasures regarding reconstruction and the local archives that students might be you might be sending them into. Um, i try tos i, get them to listen to voices that we sometimes marginalized. Does that make sense . Because a row in nashville, you have a lot of Heritage Society that are out there in public spaces, and they are doing their own thing, and some of it is good, but then some of it needs some work. [laughter] prof. Williams and i dont know if that came out. [laughter] prof. Williams i apologize. Is to, when i try to do um, to link up my students with those folks that are out there doing it, so that the papers that they write can help address what they are doing, and bear this in mind that they might have something to say that will be useful to us. Work with a group i am actually on the board there now a group called promised land. Promised land, tennessee was a community that was established by soldiers that were discharged , troops that were discharged from the army, and their story is a story of reconstruction, because the first thing they establish there, once they stake out homesteads, they create a church and a school, and then their relationship with the land is powerful, very profound. What i am getting at here is justthese sorts did not materialize out of thin air. They would talk to them. So when you start thinking about enslavement being maybe three or four grandmothers away, those that they are experiencing and directly connected to those first days of emancipation, so i answer your question, um, try to cultivate, if you will, relationships with these local groups that are trying to help fill those gaps that we dont see in the archives. The archives might have, um, you know records of land claims and things like that, but ordinarily they do not have the may be songs that they saying in Church Church or the sort of associations that they created that kind of fill the gap between what they expected the government to do for them and what they did for themselves. Is a goodr it question, and it is one that is particularly interesting if you are teaching at the university of new mexico, where there are of course our people who have a historic, personal, familial connection to locality, i mean, the reconstruction process does actually shape the future of new mexico if in slightly different ways than elsewhere. But it is kind of hard for me to convey. New mexico is kind of a world into itself. And when i think that for me, like a class on slavery and freedom in the United States, i have a whole class in that section section in that class that is on memory, you would think that a nation that defines itself by a commitment to freedom would be fixated on reconstruction above any other historical moment, but i do try to walk them through a couple of different case studies involving what gets remembered and what gets forgotten, but they are almost always seeing it as somewhere else, right, as what is happening elsewhere, and in ways, that can be a very constructive thing. And all of those episodes do not pertain to reconstruction, some of them about slavery, some to the american revolution, some to the civil war, but i do kind of try to bundle the seemingly disparate localities together through some, you know, newspaper articles, journal articles, case studies, and then historians and how they have presented reconstruction and also slavery over time. So, you know, it is kind of a grab bag approach in terms of what gets forgotten in that class, but maybe in a good way in that it gets people to think, the students to think comparatively about different of viewnd their kind looking east from new mexico on reconstruction. I will just briefly, i think it is an interesting question that i am still thinking about, because i tend to think about it in the reverse, that going local allows us to address some of the erasures that we see in the national narrative, you know, Freedmens Bureau records tells a lot about particular families, and the stresses of reconstruction in a way that is just not going to make it in that big political narrative, but, you know, so how do we hand it on the local level . I guess i will address it in a pedagogical sort of way, it is not, you cannot just sort of unleash students on sources and let them go and then take their paper at the end of the semester. I mean, a lot of the discussion in class needs to go on to help them be able to ask some of the questions and be able to really think critically about some of these sources and see some of the things you are talking about, so i think that is really important. Tend to own teaching, i try to use contemporary art to the violence in the record, so when teaching violence and lynching, i will talk very specifically and offer specific sources about the 19thcentury iteration, but then i will often juxtapose that with whok of someone like is committed to thinking through lynching and using those lynching photographs and so all youe victim, are left with our people who seem to be extraordinarily excited about something that we know is awful, and that helps students understand a little bit about what is missing in the archival record, and then also allows them to think about how contemporary artists are grappling with these same issues and hoping to do some of that historical work in their own medium. Prof. Sheehandean great. Yes, right here in the front. You talked about the local level. How about the national changes . [inaudible] prof. Sheehandean how do you will handle the amendments, the postwar amendments . It inpryor i probably do a pretty technical fashion in the sense that it is really important, obviously, and they do have their builtin complexities. I kind of teaching them as a product of compromise between the radical and moderate wings, and i do tend to accentuate how important it was to that process that the arch conservatives, especially in the south, did so much to offend moderates to the point where the kind of retriggered the slave power conspiracy, prompting moderates to align very closely, if not completely, but closely to the radical republicans. And i think i guess, since i tend to show how contingent, right, and how unlikely in ways the 14th and 15th amendments were and how still transformative they were but how hard bought they were from a really fraught political process. That andd to address then also, of course, you want to address the limitations of the amendments in terms of their scope and power and then contact the implications of that group forward. I bit of lecture time doing that. Then ill just walk the students through the amendments, line by line. I would agree that tool, simply having them read them, is transformative. It really forces them to grapple with detail and context, yeah. Opening. Yeah, i agree with that. Especially the 14th amendment. There. A lot going on in very similar, im i think, to both of you. I would say my approach to is alwaystion changing. I think one thing i was always focused on the said, and, what they then interpretations thereafter. Thanks to recent really pushings back and thinking about where these came from. So that may change some of my approach in the future. And we talk a little bit what they did not do. Amendment still allows for slavery under certain circumstances. Then we talk about the need for link thatmendment and to dread scotts. And then the 15th amendment gives black men the right to vote. Favoritee of my questions. The 15th amendment. Right tolacks the vote. Its like, nah, it didnt, it blacked about half of the population at the time. So we focus a lot on defining them, understanding them, but then understanding their shortcomings. Yeah. I think in particular, the amendments open up all these opportunities to let students that reconstruction, you can extend this for a very long time. Suffrage,on of female i mean, the 14th amendment, comes right to today, right . A provision was added kind of contingently. Studentsto do with the understanding that and then you get to this core question that addressed,s has also of how do we decide who is it that gets to be an american . Studentsa question our should be talking about. The amendments are a great tool, i think, in that sense, as a reading cool. Just real quick, of course, if you i think that the area modern literature has really opened up the opportunity to teach it from a different is to do it from the perspective of california and, you know, stacy smith, Josh Patterson and michael bottoms, works on reconstruction in california. Much of that is about the amendments and the implications of them. So theres a lot of room to do think, from that perspective too. Do you address the retirization of different prioritization of different agendas for reconstruction by, know, radicals, moderates, security, education . How do you sort out for the students or help them think agendas at work among the various constituencies involved in the process, on the ground. That is an area where i think history can work really well, especially if you have down. Rn teachers coming and working directly with three people. See the affinities but also disconnects, right . Even abolitionists had a very hard time understanding and kind of connecting sometimes with former slaves. You know, the die rama i used earlier, about the time in the low country, South Carolina. The steven ash book. Think that ah. Think that i mean, its a very good question. Iu could almost i mean, havent done this, but you could almost just turn around and classan entire discussion, right, at the end of module, or you could have a paper prompt, saying, what did different people expect to get out of reconstruction and did they get it . That would be a very good way to it. K about thats almost like it goes kind of with the how it, the whoy was won question, or who won what, which is also something thats the literature. I mean, its a very good question. That im not sure how to best answer it, but yeah, its really interesting. I forget the professors a paper aboutgave a month ago that drew attention oklahomaas going on in the federal government was actually pushing americans to provide land. They had in slave and i was just struck that this was going on right about the time when johnston was returning africanamericans had received under shermans had received under shermans and thats for me, that revealed an inconsistent policy had. The government i dont know enough of it, about it to speak on, what was going oklahoma. Scenario that theres still a lot of work that needs to be done. Meandoes reconstruction over here says its a really complex period. I think that were still wrestling with, trying to figure out just exactly the basic things like, what did freedom everybody in the south subscribe to this sort of that Land Ownership meant independence or it meant freedom . I dont know. I answered know if your question. Toanother interesting way get at it might be i dont do this, but im kind of thinking out loud here. Ask yourself, what do exconfederates want out of the reconstruction process . Because at least early on, they poorly. It so they wanted to resource something very close to slavery politicallym incompetent on the National Stage of pulling that off. And so is that really what they want, or do they really just hearts, their heart of to be aggrieved . And they are ruthless in ways. Theyre really so i think i mean, its just very good question. I think thats one way to think about it too. It changes over time too clearly, especially in the north. But thats another interesting is what people want out of the process changes as it moves along, which is part of why its so complex, i think. This is going to sound like but the book on urban emancipation is terrific at disaggregating black perspectives in a surprising which, as a case study, of looking at how rather than talking about sort of the black reconstruction and opposed to the confederate interest, there are multiple competingthat and interests within the black community. Am i misrepresenting it . Episode whered an theres factual divisions within the black community, you can about whye talk people respond to you in different ways and kind of complicate the narrative. Can be as a secondary thing. Well, the way for students to understand how politics work is not drivenly strictly one identity driven by strictly one identity and that its dynamic and situational. My students at least dont yet have that appreciation so,ow politics works and again, if this is a sort of way into that, all the better. [inaudible question] yes. Which is what yes. Which is another way to get to otherness. Thats changed. Lets go all the way to the back. Well come up here. Hi. Im a high school teacher. Two and a half weeks, three, to cover reconstruction 15yearold. Complexity. [inaudible] so they can understand it. But it is complicated. Find myself in recent years gravitating toward trying to connection between reconstruction and today. More specifically, the failures in reconstruction and today. Relations and stereotypes and biases. Myt would you want to see students leave the class knowing asking . Good question. [laughter] everything. You can just cover it all. That would be great. [laughter] so in terms of the students coming in, what are the kind of foundational things that are useful for them to know or the questions they should be alert to . If anybody in the audience also wants to answer, that would be great too. Great ifi think its youre giving two weeks to it. I think that is good. Seems maybe i misremembered. I dont think i got much of all it. Igh school on very good i had a very good class. Hool history and so i dont know. Would i how could i what would i get across in two weeks . Gouess you kind of have to for, i would think, maybe a baseline narrative, right . Getting students to understand the sequence of mean, and, you know i what i would frame thenstruction as is postwar settlement. Thats really about two different issues that are inextricably connected. One is reunion and the other is, what is what does abolition look like, right . But then walking that through events, goingf through the amendments and, you know,the process of, you white supremacist violence to recontrol the governments, im where i would pick my battles in terms of the details. Tough task. Y im sorry. To just finish the other thing, about ke it [inaudible] we can make it about emancipation as well as reconstruction. Emancipation is easier to teach. Is less eaway [inaudible] ambiguous outcome. Well, i spent a lot of [inaudible] im trying to help them facts. And the then move into, [inaudible] sounds like youre doing a great job. In great hands. Thank you, is what im hearing. I think so, yeah. Yes. I wanted to return to the chronology. West,think, like elliott she reconceptualized the 19th century. In the beginning of the 1840s, after the mexican war, the how do we assimilate a foreign population . 1890s. I know this is a strange question to ask of this panel, have a [inaudible] probably couldnt say this to my first job in georgia. Youreogizes to you if from georgia. But the civil war overshadows everything. Tennessee as well. When i first earned my doctorate, my dissertation advisor took a sabbatical, so i wore him out. But i taught his class. He didnt call it reconstruction. Post civil war america. 1865 to 1890. Thought that was that iniodization really worked that you were able to pretty from emancipation to the doorstep of jim crow. To answer your question, i dont to a that well ever get point to where i know we wont get to a point to where we civil war, where it just another verse in a long lyric. Will happen, that because were fighting in fighting to re theyve got a law that says you cant take down confederate now. Ents we ont think [inaudible] very good thought experiment. Sense that i mean, i just i dont know, but i do have the sense that in the middle of a number of changes in public opinion, in country, and that the old that the longstanding romanticization of the civil war, which was so popular for so dont see a lot of students who are animated by the, even when i was at university of South Carolina, you had your lost causers. But there really werent that them, at least not who would show it on a test. You did have ones who would, let why the civil war is about the tariff. [laughter] guess i would suggest another way to think of that. Will we reach a point where our coming to class, wanting to hear about reconstruction, more than they want to hear about the civil war . I actually dont think thats unimaginable. And i dont know. Really knowdont where the trends are going. My intuition is that were approaching Something Like that. You see this in pop culture too, are actually not many but at least some half portrayals of reconstruction in film and tv or least the or elements after, after the civil war that, are be dehumanizing and not just stereotypical or drob toir. Think derogatory. I think thats very interesting but i also note that in addition west essay, which really does try to transform the reconstruction he calls it the greatest reconstruction. A nation without borders, he speaks of multiple that includens progressive era reforms, which is really its like there are reconstructions that arent tethered to the civil war. I think there are reasons for that. But that would be another example of the term being itefined in such a way that approaches almost approaches doing something almost as a subject but it has the same name as reconstruction, as you might think of it conventionally. Id like to get my students thinking about [inaudible] and what constitutes an event [inaudible] yes. [inaudible] one of the things that im finding is this question is for dr. Byrd. [inaudible] you are seeing changes in attitudes. Its a very kind of powerful concept. Almost like an emotional connection to that bigger idea. Go en i [inaudible] you couldondering if say more about how use of images could really inform what were classroom. Ay in the and for the rest of the panel, imagery . Ou use ok. So the use of images and interpretively, in a rich way. I mean, images are everything, yeah. [laughter] i would say that its often a up ao get students to open little bit. I often ask them first, particularly if they are new to thinking about visual material, to spend a little time thinking conventions, photographic conventions of our time, to help them understand the idea of convention. Is thesay, what difference between your faith yourprofile photograph, linkedin photograph and what you instagram or snapchat . That helps them to begin to much theyveow internalized these inside ideas these ideas. Once weve sort of set up those pivot to thee can past and understand that those images also have conventions. I also found the key is to get front of as many images as possible to think about change over time. Rightk youre absolutely about these harper cartoons. But to also help them feel as if bunch and can have that idea of the visual under their belts as well. Know that historians and maybe art historians were supposed to be at war over images. But i would just say that the about always to think work as a body of work. And the more you look, the more youlearn, and that helps then when you pivot back to interpreting a specific image. Thanats much better anything i could say. But ill just note that one of veryhings where images is powerful when teaching reconstruction is to show students what voting looks like, right . Because you can explain it to them. You can show it to them. Oh, wait. Just have to walk up and put your ticket in a box. Everybody could see what you were doing. Go to theu would polls with your friends, wouldnt you . That can be very powerful. I mean, dana, you had mentioned using contemporary art. Ive used, on a few occasions, whichara walker images, unlike the artist you were describing ken gonzalez. About absence. And walker is about this sort of superabundance, sort of horrifying, everything is there. Ive had really remarkable discussions with students. My concern is that they dont though theyre saturated in images, and still they dont have a good critical that. Y for but walkers art is, i mean, troubling but in i think a very productive way in a classroom. Is that something do you use some of her material . Do. But just to return to this point, i actually believe they with a visual acuity. Isis just forcing forcing strong encouraging them to really just make it e explicit d to think about reading images as a process that has a convention for a time and place. Yeah. But kara walker is great, yeah, really wonderful. Wonderful. Yeah. Hi. The university of chicago. I want to come back to some of you were touching on this. Which is recovering the otherness of the past. Of our students a realthey come in with thin that history is more relevant than ever and they want connections. [inaudible] ona feeling of losing out reconstruction and losing out. Curious if you can talk about the kind of othernesses that you stress and what the benefits are. Opened that can of worms, so i guess i have to Say Something smart about that. [laughter] i think, you know, for me, when i open up that issue, i think that in ways, its kind of a question to the audience, is that, is that really a priority for us when we teach . I think that there are such toar and urgent reasons stress the continuities, right, in terms of the persistence of inequality and racism. And, of course, we need to address that, and, of course, also the legal and constitutional legacies of reconstruction are so powerful and important to the civil right movement and so much else. Sense is that the otherness of the past, sometimes drops out doesnt isnt as salient. I could be wrong. I dont know how everybody teaches that. Me, the parsons book on the plan is very good. Think that i should probably do considerably more. Do is, i do assign, class,lavery and freedom a juxtapose the treatment of the of emancipation and the tragic ear with the dubois how he renders that same moment. Dubois rendering is very interesting, because its outsiders eyes. Its a very sympathetic portrayal too. That heof the things plays up is the consider moment. S ecstasy of the i think we sometimes present the emancipation moment as being quintessentially secular. And i could be wrong about that. Wonder if we do that and if we lose something along the way. Research, iin my see mid19th century americans as very different from us in lots of ways. And for me, i do that with how they thought about the world and their place in the world. And i dont put a lot of that in my teaching. It, you know, the other guess its the one thing i probably should do, although i dont usually teach my own research, i guess if i were to do that, i could do a lecture on of mormontruction utah. Areounds the republicans adamant that poll lig mi is slavery pol that its slaver. Im really interested in moments like that, though ill admit in any teaching, i am sometimes more orthodox in trying to get at the kind of central, traditional narrative. What youly appreciate asked. And i think students coming in with this kind of energy, its a great thing. I dont want to do anything to tamp that down. I appreciate the comments, you know, that theres some things have changed. Weve got to appreciate the differences and everything. But i guess what i try to do is that be sort of the end point. Was it the same or different . And try to get past that a bit. E and at least have them leave the classroom appreciating the importance of context for understanding whats going on today. I mean, very basic about why we do history. Was actually very happy to hear earlier this year, trevor and gave to our campus this, like, huge speech in the basketball arena and everybody went. Goes, historyhe is context and you need context to understand anything thats going on today. And i just i was like, our job is done you, trevor noah think, you know, we have to appreciate the sort of whats hooking the students today and run with it. Yeah. Back there. I have the opposite question. Get the students who dont who dont feel that ativation i work in Community College environment issues in ourave own life. But history isnt the most important thing to them. Fire. S no how can you get them engaged . To the point of reading them, but [inaudible] who areo you get those maybe thinking history is the earth, theything on havent come to life . The question is about making it relevant and helping students contrast to the previous one, helping students see the continuity to their own lives in particular. Guess ive done this in several ways. Yes, dont get me wrong. I encounter that all the time. Its not your fault. Identify with that. In the 100 level survey tricky, thats really when ive got 300 students in the room. How do you reach them all . Sometimes its just opening up a class by explicitly drawing these connections between today and then. That can do some of that work of sort of opening their eyes. But in my upper level classes, i try to get students as much as the classroom, and this is a great advantage. I used to teach in upstate new york. Now im in kentucky. I teach a lot of southern history, so its really been a great opportunity for me. To get them you know, one class we went and did Research Local historic sight that was an antebellum plant taition, to help them learn about their past. Doing that fieldwork helped students to believe, oh, theres purpose to what were doing and it matters. I think in different ways, why this matters is really important. This might sound kind of corny, but this is what i do sometimes. If we are talking about camps and class in of my blackast day nashville class, we meet at the naigly. Ort its kind of an oral combination. We stand up there and you can see the skyline. Its like, ok, well tell me what know, so well point to a community and youll say, they remember this. And, you know, its hit or miss i think, just being in that space reinforces lesson. And then we talk about contraband camps. With myly graphic description of it. Andt of folks came here, their first taste of freedom was to come here and die. Well, suppose we found their their and made we find some bodies. I ask them, how should we commemorate this . What should this space become if actually to find that . Readingdeal with your issue, and i struggle with that university, there really is important stuff we read in class to each other. Its not like were reading lopping monographs long monographs, but certain sections. I say, ok, well, what is this saying . Its a really good question because i i mean, i talk in at three different institutions where the levels of some,tion varied particularly concerning civil war and reconstruction. But especially at the university of new mexico right now, our is a nationalhich trend, have just plummeted. Actually, i would take a 300 to a 300person class at the drop of a hat if i could, it would help our department. To the point where actually my civil war reconstruction class semester, which is an Upper Division has, has enrolled more introductoryral course on u. S. History. Amazing. Kind of but the compromise i made for right, andc student, making the c student care and tune in, right, and in many ways, thats actually one of the most compelling yard sticks for class, is doesa the c student walk out of the class having a deeper something withr greater perspective . Because your as, theyre going what,k probably no matter most of them. One of the compromises i made that i wasnt going to read my intro at least in level courses. I have power points with bullet points and images. You lose thing when you do that in terms of the total amount of and content. If you read a lecture, you can get more in, but you do lose think. On, i so i talk a lot about my points make sure to walk around the room and make eye contact. Cases, aus on, in some very small number of limited texts that are immediately dripping, and to try to do that, because i think it the keyy one of struggles. Every institution has its own challenges but i just see that where, you know, its such a struggle in some cases, when theyre taking it, because its a requirement, to make them care. And i just think that i mean, its a very good question. Main thing is thats what i do. Im sorry. I would also add creating assignments that really require them to produce something that elsewhere. Icated an example of that might be joining in one of the many different opportunities to edit wikipedia having themt transcribe 19th century script readablething thats to people. It will be frustrating at point but i think the idea that this information is not replicated anywhere and that they have created a document that makes it possible for more people to access the past is the sort of thing that could be helpful, right . Were all in it. We love the archive. I mean, i do, but yeah. Thattry to remind student they care about these issues. Ofs a fundamental question this era, what does equality does freedom mean . This question of otherness, on the first day of the survey, i want to, historians make the past both a strange country and a familiar domestic one. Be continuous but it should also be weird and unknowable at some fundamental level. Thats ok, but the question of, what does equality mean and who gets equality . These ar are salient issues. Senior in higha school and they come home arguing about this. Saying was optimistically about their visual knowledge, its in them to know these things matter. The hooks that say to them, you are arguing with your people very differenta context today, but lets do it, sort of practice it here. History is, is kind of a practice for empathy and these other things. Well start here and then go back. I was just going to emphasize what you were saying. For me, this actually is the easiest era to get students to care about or excited about, just any news story nowadays immigration, income black lives matter you can find something in the reconstruction era that is this. Ly related to the kind of discretions youre discussionsour youre mentioning your children having, theyre still having. They may not in their own minds make the connection to reconstruction, thats my job. The stories are all around us. Available,s are yeah. Fair enough. At lso teach [inaudible] new york. Theres two issues. Teaching reconstruction, which a completely different [inaudible] i use a hook. Worked for me very well the last two years was the moniments and that monuments and that controversy. Eds, my favorite one is [inaudible] on ed that sort of defended keeping the up and the editors after the civil war, nailed down in church next man, and therefore he wasnt a racist. You [inaudible] eds inthen read those on easy class. [inaudible] ask the panel. So i teach northerners, right . Students, new york students come into class with of no losts causers. Not that i know of. [inaudible] complacency. S a they come in with this complacency about northern attitudes during the civil war and reconstruction. Monuments. Nobody tears them down. [inaudible] not so northerners did [inaudible] and then the stereotypes right . Outherners, at thehen you look stereotypes, what do you think about the American South . They exclusively talk about white settlers. And so i want to ask, how do you integrate the north narrative to complacencyhe that [inaudible] so how do you deal with northerners and particularly upsetting the easy assumption among todays contemporary northerners that they dont have responsibility or didnt their ancestors in the context of the war and reconstruction . Much of the narratives that been pushing against all these years were created in the north, no . At columbia. Me, when i talk about how it a lot on thefocus north, because theyre getting a chatter thats coming up out of the south, right, about the runningcians blackver the southerners, mismanaging funds. So eventually it reaches a point my mind, thest in north says, well, we had enough of all of this. And this is best represented, i think, when tilden is selected to be the democratic president president democratic candidate for president in 1876. Is this greation said, ifas some have this is a failure, the north was complicit in it. In albany. O teach so i encountered this definitely. And actually, i havent changed the way i teach it from north to south necessarily. I think all over, i found, sources verymary effective, not just a visual but sometimes hearing the voices of some of these northerners, you know. The northern white teacher who comes down to the south, dogooding, but when they read what theyre really saying about students, the students are like, oh, theyre kind of White Supremacists too. I dont have to bang it over their heads that white northerners shared some of the as whitemptions southerners, but just show it to them, and thats really effective. Start the always class with new york city draft, right . Do try very seriously but to notrhaps very subtly invoke my students identities when im teaching and not assume know who they are. Thats not because i dont have cases, buts in some for me, i really want them to somethinghe past as that theyre outsiders to, that theyre looking in on from a different vantage point. Some of that is a rhetorical teaching. Take with its certainly not the whole story but its something i do, i find that i feel like ive had some success with over time. Thing is thats really important to do is to partisan divide in the north about this. And i guess i guess maybe i would the other thing i dont want the students to do, well, were northerners, so we were on the right side. Do, you know . You dont get to give yourself a pat on the back based on where born. Re i really dislike this logic of value tofirming their the world based on what group theyre born into. You need to go out and do if young in the world want to feel good. You need to make your own decisions if you want to feel done. Bout what youve but i mean, i am a real stickler own thinking. There is a Counter Point to this, which is that, i mean, i understand that the abolitionists and the radicals had their flaws, right, but better . Heir ideology i mean, so if a student says, were the children of the north, well, ok, thats probably better than the alternative. Right . That, but ially say guess you could run with it, right . But. Yes . Maybe just [inaudible] the question of otherness but also the question of challenging of inevitability, so with students possibly coming united by history and kind of using it as context [inaudible] i think at least personally one of the things that i think tout when i really want challenge the idea of tovitability is im wanting kind of use history as a tool of activism or Something Like that, tool of inspiring students, that you can make a difference and then aike that, when you talk about continuity and stuff like that, things that continue are the underlying structures. More difficult to really kind of get rid of. So how have you guys kind of line between that ofpiration and possibly kind killing inspiration with, as walking this line of continuity, discontinuity, stuff like that . Yeah. Amy brought this up earlier, structure and agency in history and usability of the past. Yes. Its a really good question. Focus onure i inspiring them as activists exactly. Them to be good, informed citizens and especially vote and have what they need to express their voice. So i think what youre laying out here, its true its important. What you say, those structures can make you pretty pessimistics of an pestr mystic about the power of an done. Dual to get anything but theres a lot of examples in our past where voting has ma ed theseerence despite structures. And when you see how important a vote was to many people and how thinkhey worked for it, i thats a pretty inspiring thing to. So i dont know. Thats a really good question. Just leave it at that. I struggle with trying to define reconstruction as either, you know, a story with a happy whether its a tragic tale. Is i emphasize a that come good things up out of it. Redefineed mind, we period. During this we crafted new notions of freedom. All of the africanamericans that arrived in nashville or any larger cities, and i say iis every time i teach it, say these folks did not come to emptyhanded, even though they may not have had much on them. Whichad their culture, animates the south in these cities. Nashville would not be music city had it not been for the folks who occupied those those songsamps, that they song, built jubilee and really lies at the core of everything my students listen earbuds they put in their ears. So its a story thats tragic in are some but there positives to it. I think, the most important, i think, is the independent church, at least in nashville. And in other places in the south too. These institutions cultivate who have a pretty different notion of what the church worried about folks dying and going to heaven but at the same time were worried about their wellbeing in the here and now. Complex story with some heinous details but there are some positives. And i still struggle with, well, what im telling students, is that a good story or a bad story . I dont know. Its a very good question. Mean, one thats you ar urgentn ways. This Huge Division within the profession about the use of the past and whether what were supposed to do and whether its partisan and subjective or Something Like that. I think that probably in my tone teaching, i try to come off as neutral, although if my me, i would tell them that neutrality and objectivity arent the same thing. One way to think of the inevitability question is not to people whether or not something is inevitable but when it becomes inevitable, right . Because actually everything that happened at a certain point was inevitable right. It just may have been like a before it happened. And the question is, how far tok do you go, do you start get real contingency built into the historical process . To get peopleway to think about it. The reconstruction process is so fascinating, because on the one such ats disspiriting it has such a outcome, through triumph of the White Supremacists. On the other hands, if you had that in 1857, in 10 years, slavery would be dead be africanamericans would rapidly assuming the powers of citizenships, including for men, to vote, people would have found that to be absolutely astounding, right . I often accentuate that to my students. And another thing to think about is, in my lecture on South Carolina and enforcement, one of is, in termsstress of the inevitability of the triumph of the White Supremacists, when the federal enforces when it comes down and starts making klan coulde underground. They dont take a fight with the federal government. Thats telling. There was a rout to what actually very powerful, including the africanamerican churches and institutions, which proved pivotal to africanamerican politics in the 1880s and 90s. The linkages between the north and South Carolina, especially after the first great migration, but it is interesting. Think that its such a one of the things ill recommend theou is the journal of civil war era did a forum on the reconstruction, ongoing centennial. Sorry, i cant talk. Which i should acknowledge i was involved in. But jennifer taylor, the equal justice initiative, who is a lawyer, participated in that. She said, i think, some very powerful things about the between knocking the up its roots. Ing i definitely recommend that especially her comments on that topic. Align more with amy in this, in the sense that history is an interpretive discipline. Is what frustrates students, particularly if they past, thateable theres a student who looks at postwar memphis and sees the terroristic violence and the klan and economic, you againstructures working free people. And yet wells grows up in that matures through the black churches there into this force of nature. Side. Happened side by and so i mean, this is at its element, elemental level, i think we can get around this except to explain to this is how we understand history as a discipline and hoping the ones are out to make changes will interpret it in an area that they want to where be, with fidelity in the past. Theres a rigger here but its a unsolvable dilemma in many senses. But its also a good question tom, post students pose to students, even later in semester, and have them wrestle with it. Prettyr the ones who are pessimistic about individuals power. To questionart question things a little bit in that kind of discussion, yeah. We have time for one more question, if there is one here. Related to all of this is the question of impeachment, which studentsn every mind. I dont know if any of you are teaching that right now. But i wonder if students are coming to the classroom wanting to know about impeachment in the context of our current moment what the best way to handle that might be. Im on leave right now so [laughter] dealt with it yet. Yeah. I got that coming to me in about a week. Im guessing yes, but ha anecdote yet. N but could you ask for a more linkage between the past and the present . Not just in the legal and issues but the personality, right . Johnsonodness andrew didnt actually really have twitter. Crowd member oh [laughter] theres a fake Andrew Johnson on twitter, but thank goodness. Yeah. I just i am really curious to see whats gonna happen with this, because i think theyre really going to want a connection. To notethat one thing about the people have different views on this, of johnsonbut the impeachment, is this assembled with great haste, the cases. I mean, its not a legal proceeding so it shouldnt toter, but in a way it did people at the time, in terms of how they viewed impeachment. The democrats in congress now seem to be taking a very serious to assembling a persuasive case, whereas in reconstruction, the case was assembled with great speed and a partisanl of explicit fervor. Thats actually, i think, a substantial difference. True of, you know, the clinton impeachment. Partisan,o clearly whereas nixon actually had ultimately bipartisan support. Interesting things to think about in terms of the process being applied and what it tells you about politics. I dont have a full answer. I think one of the interesting things about is the interpretation of these things in theanged over time 21st century. I wonder if its an opportunity in some ways to teach students about the way that historical interpretations change. I also would be a little worried what students might take away that, that historians can do whatever they think in the present. I just wonder if its creating a particularly difficult moment for us to teach the context but also the way interpretations change. I dont know if i made this worse for you. One way to think about it is manyeriousness with which moderate republicans take concerns over the growth of the federal government, and while didnt align fully with Andrew Johnson, they were in tos sometimes sympathetic his concerns about the growth of the federal government. I hope you will join me in the panelists for this morning. [applause] and your questions. Sunday, on American History tv on cspan 3, the 1999 late senatorh the robert byrd. Prior to the impeachment trial of president clinton. We have a great body of evidence already before us. Is swornuch of which testimony already. It hasnt been crossexamined. But it would be possible, in my for us to conduct a trial without having witnesses called. Sunday at 9 p. M. Eastern on 3. On cspan [music] the house will be in order. For 40 years, cspan has been providing america unfiltered the whitef congress, house, the supreme court, and Public Policy events from washington d. C. And around the country. So you can make up your own 1979,created by cable in cspan is brought to you by your local cable or satellite provider. Cspan, your unfiltered view of government. [music] tonight on reel america, afghanistan, the struggle. Produced foro president Ronald Reagan the soviet union unioinvasion of afghanistan in. Preview. Despite the wars devastation, the tribes of the appearmountains do not power. Of soviet military their chief need, they say, is weapons. Deal with thes to helicopters and we will drive the russians out. The fact that the original subsequentoup and soviet invasion occurred in this staunchly Muslim Country has solidified religious support for the afghanistan insurgents, both from within and outside the country. Services commemorating the profit mohameds birthday, they have exhorted their congregations to slay soviet supporters. Their the afghan insurgents have successfully used religious unity in their recruiting drives. The soviets try to counter the religious issue. Several hundred members of the muslim clergy have been sent to ussr for indoctrination. The government also has tried to opinion inublic outlying areas by offering cash mullahs. To the in addition, pop rock and other figures of this regime are pictured as devout muslims. Little evidence however, that this propaganda tack is working. Overwhelming majority of cynicism onlook with efforts of the government to present itself as muslims. One in, such as this kabul, who tries to encourage his followers to support the regime, quickly lose their credibility. For their been killed betrayal. Overwhelming negative was the initial worldwide sovietn to the aggression against its small neighbor. [chanting] two weeks after the first landed inborne troops kabul, the United States Security Council overwhelming resolution calling on all foreign troops to leave afghanistan. The soviet union exercised its block the action but was supported only by east germany. Later, january 14, the u. N. Nations in General Assembly demanded an anddiate, unconditional total withdrawal of all foreign troops from afghanistan. Clear test of u. N. Opinion, one half of the represented nonaligned members. The soviets also continued to occupy afghanistan in the face of demands from 36 muslim nations for them to leave. Watch the entire film tonight at 10 00 eastern on our weekly series, reel america. You are watching American History tv, only on cspan3. Bookshelf,history eric burns talks about his book, 1920 the year that made the decade roar in which he analyzes the importance of the year in American History. Topics include prohibition, immigration, the 19th amendment, and the ponzi scheme. At remarks were recorded politics and prose bookstore in washington, d. C. , in 2015. Abby thank you all for coming out on a beautiful spring evening. Please take a moment to silence your cellphones. Secondly, we are going to have a questionandanswer portion. We are recording this event and cspan is videoing this event so it is important to come to the microphone so we can get you