How Reconstruction’s complicated and contradictory legacy continues to inform America’s understanding of itself
Historians Gregory P. Downs and Kate Masur take readers on a tour across the American South to explore how Reconstruction is the story of both the “Second Founding” of the United States and the country as it is today.
To highlight the significance of the nation’s progress toward making good on the promises of the revolutionary and founding eras, Downs and Masur recount stories that clarify the meanings of this dramatic but often confusing period. They reject the conventional view that Reconstruction ended in 1877, showing how the Civil War and the abolition of slavery created dynamics that led to many of today’s contentious political questions. They consider nine sites transformed by Reconstruction, where people continue to battle over the period’s legacies, including:
• Green-Meldrim House in Savannah, where General William T. Sherman was headquartered and met with local Black leaders
• First African Church in Richmond, a center for Black politics and community-building
• Colfax Courthouse in Louisiana, site of the massacre of sixty Black men
• Beaufort Naval Hospital in South Carolina, established to treat formerly enslaved people
By focusing on locations, Downs and Masur allow readers to see what happened and how the era’s struggles over rights and power continue to shape the country, showing decisively why Reconstruction matters.