Lecture on president Lyndon Johnsons war on poverty. Next melvin ely compares the reconstruction and civil rights eras. Its just over an hour. Here we are at the end of the semester and it strikes me as a Good Opportunity maybe to compare the reconstruction period that we started off talking about in this course with what some have called the second reconstruction, which is the time of the Civil Rights Movement of the 50s and 60s. Let me tell you, first, what i mean by the first reconstruction and the second reconstruction. By the first, i mean in not only postcivil war reconstruction, im including also the civil war itself and all that took place during the war up through the end of radical reconstruction. The second reconstruction will be simply enough, the Civil Rights Movement of the 50s and 60s. I wont carry my remarks any farther than that, i think. Now, in talking about the two reconstructions, im going to have to use some broad generalizations of a type im not entirely comforta
At which the civil war is still very much a part of living memory. Right . There are livingductions of the war, people involved in combat who are still alive. In 1912, state of pennsylvania issued an invitation of honorably discharged veterans of the civil war to come to gettysburg for a reunion of sorts. And you probably have already seen pictures of this or read about it in David Wrights book. I want to spend a little time talking about that. That marked something of the high water mark. It was kind of the peak of their aspirations. They invaded the north. The defeat of gettysburg was in many ways the beginning of the end. It proved at least on the battles there was no way for the confederacy to take the war to the end. So here we have some pictures. This is actually a picture of new york veterans having a meal at gettysburg. If you were to look at the public narrative, the narrative you would find in newspapers and commemorative pamphlets in public pronouncements, the sentiments exp
This class is about one hour and 10 minutes. Ok. So in getting ready for this, i wanted to do like a little background work on the socalled semicentennial of the civil war, which was of course 1911 to 1915. I found this quote. Ill tell you where it comes from in a little bit, but it seems to me to encapsulate the feeling of the early 20th century. The days of the civil war now belong to the historians, the poets, the writer of romance, in the dramatist. Now i think you would add the reenactor there, probably. But of course, this is a period at which the civil war is still very much a part of living memory. Right . There are livingductions of the there are living veterans of the war, people involved in combat who are still alive. In 1912, the state of pennsylvania issued an invitation to honorably discharged veterans of the civil war to come to gettysburg for a reunion of sorts. And you probably have already seen pictures of this or read about it. I want to spend a little time talking a
There are livingductions of the war, people involved in combat who are still alive. In 1912, state of pennsylvania issued an invitation of honorably discharged veterans of the civil war to come to gettysburg for a reunion of sorts. And you probably have already seen pictures of this or read about it in David Wrights book. I want to spend a little time talking about that. That marked something of the high water mark. It was kind of the peak of their aspirations. They invaded the north. The defeat of gettysburg was in many ways the beginning of the end. It proved at least on the battles there was no way for the confederacy to take the war to the end. So here we have some pictures. This is actually a picture of new york veterans having a meal at gettysburg. If you were to look at the public narrative, the narrative you would find in newspapers and commemorative pamphlets in public pronouncements, the sentiments expressed during this period were very much part of what david white called th
Here we are at the end of the semester and it strikes me as a Good Opportunity maybe to compare the reconstruction period that we started off talking about in this course with what some have called the second reconstruction, which is the time of the Civil Rights Movement of the 50s and 60s. Let me tell you, first, what i mean by the first reconstruction and the second reconstruction. By the first, i mean in not only postcivil war reconstruction, im including also the civil war itself and all that took place during the war up through the end of radical reconstruction. The second reconstruction will be simply enough, the Civil Rights Movement of the 50s and 60s. I wont carry my remarks any farther than that, i think. Now, in talking about the two reconstructions, im going to have to use some broad generalizations of a type im not entirely comfortable with, for example ill talk occasionally about the white south or the north or Something Like that and that covers up all kinds of complexit