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The Epic Story of Reconstruction Through the Lives of the First BlackCongressmen
Houghton Mifflin
September 2008
On Sale: September 16, 2008
460 pages
ISBN: 0618563709
EAN: 9780618563708
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction History
Reconstruction was a time of idealism and sweeping change,
as the victorious Union created citizenship rights for the
freed slaves and granted the vote to black men. Sixteen
black Southerners, elected to the U.S. Congress, arrived in
Washington to advocate reforms such as public education,
equal rights, land distribution, and the suppression of the
Ku Klux Klan. But these men faced astounding odds. They were belittled as
corrupt and inadequate by their white political opponents,
who used legislative trickery, libel, bribery, and the
brutal intimidation of their constituents to rob them of
their base of support. Despite their status as congressmen,
they were made to endure the worst humiliations of racial
prejudice. And they have been largely forgotten—often
neglected or maligned by standard histories of the period. In this beautifully written book, Philip Dray reclaims
their story. Drawing on archival documents, contemporary
news accounts, and congressional records, he shows how the
efforts of black Americans revealed their political
perceptiveness and readiness to serve as voters, citizens,
and elected officials. We meet men like the war hero Robert Smalls of South
Carolina (who had stolen a Confederate vessel and delivered
it to the Union navy), Robert Brown Elliott (who bested the
former vice president of the Confederacy in a stormy debate
on the House floor), and the distinguished former slave
Blanche K. Bruce (who was said to possess "the manners of a
Chesterfield"). As Dray demonstrates, these men were
eloquent, creative, and often effective representatives
who, as support for Reconstruction faded, were undone by
the forces of Southern reaction and Northern indifference. In a grand narrative that traces the promising yet tragic
arc of Reconstruction, Dray follows these black
representatives' struggles, from the Emancipation
Proclamation to the onset of Jim Crow, as they fought for
social justice and helped realize the promise of a new
nation.
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