This is a hybrid event held by East Bay DSA. Our reading group will meet in-person at the Poulsbo Library Community Room to tune in remotely via Zoom. Join us!

Or, to tune in remotely yourself, RSVP here

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On this date in 1896, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Plessy v Ferguson that segregation was not unlawful discrimination. It was one of many decisions made by a handful of unelected people that rolled back the gains of the Civil War and Reconstruction era. During that decades-long struggle, white Northern farmers, workers, and capitalists formed a temporary military and political alliance with Southern enslaved people against their enslavers. Each side did so out of very different motivations. This alliance produced a radical democratic movement—arguably the greatest so far in American history—that overturned some but not all of the racist and oligarchic provisions of the original Constitution. Despite the efforts of many people, including the Radical Republicans in Congress, Reconstruction was ultimately defeated.

Today, everyone who is continuing the struggle for political and social emancipation and universal and equal rights can learn from Reconstruction's history of victories and defeats.

The presentation will cover the stages of Reconstruction, the implications of its defeat, and why this history is relevant. Q&A and discussion will follow.

Suggested Readings/videos

Allen Guelzo: Reconstruction: A Concise History, Introduction (link)

Douglas R. Egerton, The Wars of Reconstruction, Prologue (link)

Tad Stoermer: “The Radical Republicans: How Resistance Broke the Constitution” (link)

Optional Readings

Timeline from Allen Guelzo’s Reconstruction (link)

Manisha Sinha on NPEC’s podcast, Class. Part one (link) and two (link)

Manisha Sinha, The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic, Introduction (link)

Eric Foner, The Second Founding, Introduction excerpt (link)

David Levering Lewis’s introduction to W.E.B. Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction (link)