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Reconstruction's Warning: What 1874 Teaches Us About This Midterm
Description
In 1862, Robert Smalls was enslaved. Thirteen years later, he was a member of the United States Congress.
Reconstruction was the closest America had ever come to a democracy for all of its people. Black men voted, wrote new state constitutions, and won office by the hundreds, building public schools that served Black and white children alike. Then, in 1874, a midterm election, a bad economy, a tired public, and organized terror at the polls began to bring it all down.
On this episode of Rethinking Freedom, attorney, author, and educator Aya Fubara Eneli argues that Reconstruction didn't fail. It was overthrown. She traces how Black political power was built, how federal enforcement protected it, and how violence, the courts, and the Compromise of 1877 took it apart. She also shows how that defeat built Jim Crow, armed the civil rights movement a century later, and still shapes the elections in front of us today.
You'll hear the stories of Robert Smalls, Texas State Senator Matthew Gaines, Elias Hill, and Congressman George H. White, along with seven lessons from Reconstruction and how to put each one to work this midterm and beyond.
🗳️ Before you vote
Texas voters: check your registration and find early voting dates and polling places at VoteTexas.gov. If you have problems at the polls, call the nonpartisan Election Protection hotline at 866-OUR-VOTE (866-687-8683).
📚 Further reading
W. E. B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America
Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution and The Second Founding
Merline Pitre, Through Many Dangers, Toils and Snares
David Zucchino, Wilmington's Lie
If this history matters to you, subscribe, share this episode with someone who needs to hear it, and tell us in the comments what lesson you're taking into this election.
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