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Cherry Pop

'Reconstruction: America After the Civil War'
(Henry Louis Gates, Jr. / 2-DVD / PG / 2019 / PBS)

Overview: Renowned Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. presents the definitive history of the transformative years following the American Civil War, when the nation struggled to rebuild itself amidst profound loss, massive destruction, and revolutionary social change.

DVD Verdict: Henry Louis Gates, Jr. presents a vital, new four-hour documentary series - 'Reconstruction: America After the Civil War' and, for my money, running at over four hours in length, it is easily one of the most fascinating, and in depth looks at a period of our time that seems to always get glossed over, so to speak.

As the title suggests, the series explores the transformative years following the American Civil War, when the nation struggled to rebuild itself in the face of both profound destruction and revolutionary social change.

Initially, African Americans enjoyed what W. E. B. Du Bois called a "brief moment in the sun", when they could build businesses, become educated, exercise their right to vote, and run for public office.

The Constitution was even amended to grant them citizenship, and protect their freedoms. But many former Confederates were staunchly resistant to this new social order, and they unleashed a backlash in the form of rampant violence and a state-by-state rollback of voting rights.

This series tells the real story of Reconstruction, one of America's most overlooked, misunderstood, and misrepresented periods of history.

Although there is obviously way too much to cover here in this review, one of the stand out recounting is that of The Union victory in the Civil War in 1865.

Sure it may well have given some 4 million slaves their freedom, but the process of rebuilding the South during the Reconstruction period (1865-1877) introduced a new set of significant challenges.

Under the administration of President Andrew Johnson in 1865 and 1866, new southern state legislatures passed restrictive “black codes” to control the labor and behavior of former slaves and other African Americans.

Outrage in the North over these codes eroded support for the approach known as Presidential Reconstruction and led to the triumph of the more radical wing of the Republican Party.

During Radical Reconstruction, which began in 1867, newly enfranchised blacks gained a voice in government for the first time in American history, winning election to southern state legislatures and even to the U.S. Congress.

In less than a decade, however, reactionary forces–including the Ku Klux Klan–would reverse the changes wrought by Radical Reconstruction in a violent backlash that restored white supremacy in the South.

Also, did you know that during Reconstruction, the Republican Party in the South represented a coalition of blacks (who made up the overwhelming majority of Republican voters in the region) along with "carpetbaggers" and "scalawags," as white Republicans from the North and South, respectively, were known?

Well, 'Reconstruction: America After the Civil War' honors the struggle of the African Americans who fought their way out of slavery and challenged the nation to live up to the founding ideals of democracy, freedom, and equality. This is, without a shadow of a doube MUST SEE TV! This is a Widescreen Presentation (1.85:1) enhanced for 16x9 TVs.

www.PBS.org





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