Reconstruction: America After the Civil War
Reconstruction: America After the Civil War
Reconstruction: America After the Civil War
Documentary
67
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Overview
Explore the transformative years following the American Civil War, when the nation struggled to rebuild itself in the face of profound loss, massive destruction, and revolutionary social change. The twelve years that composed the post-war Reconstruction era (1865-77) witnessed a seismic shift in the meaning and makeup of our democracy.
Status: Ended
First Air Date: 2019-04-09
Runtime: 0h 55m
Director: Julia Marchesi
Writer: Unknown
Top Cast
Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Self - Host
Official Videos
Inside Look | Reconstruction: America After the Civil War | PBS
Inside Look | Reconstruction: America After the Civil War | PBS
Episodes - Season 1
Part 1, Hour 1
Part 1, Hour 1
Episode 1
The aftermath of the Civil War was bewildering, exhilarating...and terrifying. African Americans had played a crucial role in saving the Union and now, as the country grappled with the terms and implications of Reconstruction, they struggled to breathe life into their hard-won freedom. The result was a second American Revolution.
Part 1, Hour 2
Part 1, Hour 2
Episode 2
Post-Civil War America was a new world. For African Americans living in the former Confederacy, Reconstruction was what historian W. E. B. Du Bois once described as their “brief moment in the sun.” But support for the social, economic, and political gains they achieved didn’t last long. A controversial presidential election in 1876 deals Reconstruction a grievous blow.
Part 2, Hour 1
Part 2, Hour 1
Episode 3
An examination of the years 1877-1896, a transitional period that saw visions of a “New South” set the stage for the rise of Jim Crow and the undermining of Reconstruction’s legal and political legacy. While some African Americans attempted to migrate, the vast majority remained in the South, where sharecropping, convict leasing, disfranchisement, and lynchings drew a “color line”.
Part 2, Hour 2
Part 2, Hour 2
Episode 4
The turn of the century is known as the ‘nadir’ of race relations, when white supremacy was ascendant and African Americans faced both physical and psychological oppression. Racist imagery saturated popular culture and Southern propaganda manipulated the story of the Civil War and Reconstruction. But African Americans found ways to fight back, using artistic expression to put forward a “New Negro.”
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