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RainDog

(28,784 posts)
Sun Jul 22, 2012, 04:42 PM Jul 2012

Reconstruction: The Second Civil War (Part 1)



Part 2:

&feature=relmfu

Slavery By Another Name (the 1900s)

http://video.pbs.org/video/2176766758/

This is a long overlooked part of American history. After the assassination of Lincoln, Andrew Johnson's concern was to make sure white solidarity between North and South was reasserted - and Johnson, from Tennessee, cared little to nothing for the circumstances of those who had been held in slavery. Johnson opposed the freaking 14th amendment (states rights and all that.)

Radical Republicans of the Reconstruction Era wanted to thoroughly destroy the power structure that had made up the south before the Civil War. I agree. Ex-confederates should've never been allowed back into the Federal govt. They should've been executed as traitors, as the abolitionists wanted.

The sad irony, of course, is that it took another president by the name of Johnson to pass a civil rights act to undo what racists had undone over nearly a hundred years. He said Democrats had lost the south for a generation with his act. How repulsive that his prediction was correct.
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Reconstruction: The Second Civil War (Part 1) (Original Post) RainDog Jul 2012 OP
Thanks and bookmarking! BumRushDaShow Jul 2012 #1
my pleasure RainDog Jul 2012 #2
I've watched Part 1 and am going to watch the 2nd part now....just want snappyturtle Jul 2012 #3
you're welcome RainDog Jul 2012 #7
Just finished watching both parts Progressive dog Jul 2012 #4
Did you also watch "Slavery By Another Name" RainDog Jul 2012 #5
Not yet, but I will Progressive dog Jul 2012 #6
Slavery By Another Name RainDog Jul 2012 #8

RainDog

(28,784 posts)
2. my pleasure
Sun Jul 22, 2012, 07:41 PM
Jul 2012


although to see these things makes me want to cry.

also - Marston - whose ancestor is part of this story - gawd he makes me want to vomit.

snappyturtle

(14,656 posts)
3. I've watched Part 1 and am going to watch the 2nd part now....just want
Sun Jul 22, 2012, 08:34 PM
Jul 2012

Last edited Sun Jul 22, 2012, 10:03 PM - Edit history (1)

to say thank you. I've learned aspects of reconstruction I had
never known. It's answered a lot of questions I've had about
how matters were handled post war.

edit: Just finished watching Part 2...best explanation of reconstruction.

Progressive dog

(6,862 posts)
4. Just finished watching both parts
Mon Jul 23, 2012, 10:49 AM
Jul 2012

I have read a lot of Civil War history and knew about some of the continuation of the war after it's end. This documentary goes well beyond anything I thought I knew about the south after the war.
Probably the part that bothers me the most about this are the words of the Marston descendant. It's not over yet.

RainDog

(28,784 posts)
5. Did you also watch "Slavery By Another Name"
Mon Jul 23, 2012, 01:22 PM
Jul 2012

I just linked to it below the other two.

The three programs, together, show how the U.S. went from the Civil War to "legal" discrimination.

And, yes, that Marston descendant is infuriating.

Progressive dog

(6,862 posts)
6. Not yet, but I will
Mon Jul 23, 2012, 04:52 PM
Jul 2012

There is a website devoted to the history of "slavery" in Birmingham, where black men were arrested for vagrancy and then "rented" to coal mines as "slave" laborers. I only found this a few years ago and until then had known nothing about it.
Been meaning to see if I could find any books on the subject. Thanks.

RainDog

(28,784 posts)
8. Slavery By Another Name
Mon Jul 23, 2012, 06:11 PM
Jul 2012

is based upon a great book.

http://www.slaverybyanothername.com/the-book/

In this groundbreaking historical expose, Douglas A. Blackmon brings to light one of the most shameful chapters in American history—when a cynical new form of slavery was resurrected from the ashes of the Civil War and re-imposed on hundreds of thousands of African-Americans until the dawn of World War II.

Under laws enacted specifically to intimidate blacks, tens of thousands of African Americans were arbitrarily arrested, hit with outrageous fines, and charged for the costs of their own arrests. With no means to pay these ostensible “debts,” prisoners were sold as forced laborers to coal mines, lumber camps, brickyards, railroads, quarries and farm plantations. Thousands of other African Americans were simply seized by southern landowners and compelled into years of involuntary servitude. Government officials leased falsely imprisoned blacks to small-town entrepreneurs, provincial farmers, and dozens of corporations—including U.S. Steel Corp.—looking for cheap and abundant labor. Armies of "free" black men labored without compensation, were repeatedly bought and sold, and were forced through beatings and physical torture to do the bidding of white masters for decades after the official abolition of American slavery.

The neoslavery system exploited legal loopholes and federal policies which discouraged prosecution of whites for continuing to hold black workers against their wills. As it poured millions of dollars into southern government treasuries, the new slavery also became a key instrument in the terrorization of African Americans seeking full participation in the U.S. political system.
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