The companion volume to the Smithsonian's National Museum of
African American History and Culture exhibit, opening in September
2021 With a Foreword by Pulitzer Prize-winning author and historian
Eric Foner and a preface by veteran museum director and historian
Spencer Crew An incisive and illuminating analysis of the enduring
legacy of the post-Civil War period known as Reconstruction-a
comprehensive story of Black Americans' struggle for human rights
and dignity and the failure of the nation to fulfill its promises
of freedom, citizenship, and justice. In the aftermath of the Civil
War, millions of free and newly freed African Americans were
determined to define themselves as equal citizens in a country
without slavery-to own land, build secure families, and educate
themselves and their children. Seeking to secure safety and
justice, they successfully campaigned for civil and political
rights, including the right to vote. Across an expanding America,
Black politicians were elected to all levels of government, from
city halls to state capitals to Washington, DC. But those gains
were short-lived. By the mid-1870s, the federal government stopped
enforcing civil rights laws, allowing white supremacists to use
suppression and violence to regain power in the Southern states.
Black men, women, and children suffered racial terror, segregation,
and discrimination that confined them to second-class citizenship,
a system known as Jim Crow that endured for decades. More than a
century has passed since the revolutionary political, social, and
economic movement known as Reconstruction, yet its profound
consequences reverberate in our lives today. Make Good the Promises
explores five distinct yet intertwined legacies of
Reconstruction-Liberation, Violence, Repair, Place, and Belief-to
reveal their lasting impact on modern society. It is the story of
Frederick Douglass, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Hiram Revels, Ida
B. Wells, and scores of other Black men and women who reshaped a
nation-and of the persistence of white supremacy and the
perpetuation of the injustices of slavery continued by other means
and codified in state and federal laws. With contributions by
leading scholars, and illustrated with 80 images from the
exhibition, Make Good the Promises shows how Black Lives Matter,
#SayHerName, antiracism, and other current movements for repair
find inspiration from the lessons of Reconstruction. It touches on
questions critical then and now: What is the meaning of freedom and
equality? What does it mean to be an American? Powerful and
eye-opening, it is a reminder that history is far from past; it
lives within each of us and shapes our world and who we are.
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