[lbo-talk] End of Black Reconstruction (was Why I HateCourts--orhow judicial review destroyed the country)

[Michael Dawson]

But you can't sustain your argument if you admit Reconstruction was flawed
from Day One, can you?  As MLK argued, if you don't have the money for
lunch, being allowed to sit at the lunch-counter isn't much of a victory.
Reconstruction wasn't helped by the courts.  But it wasn't adequate way
before the courts got involved.  This society's troubles go deeper than the
courts.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org]
> On Behalf Of Nathan Newman
> Sent: Thursday, November 18, 2004 11:56 AM
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] End of Black Reconstruction (was Why I HateCourts-
> -orhow judicial review destroyed the country)
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Michael Dawson" <MDawson at pdx.edu>
> -Nathan also views Reconstruction too narrowly -- as being just a matter
> of
> -"turning slaves into voters."  Of course, what Reconstruction was really
> -about was turning slaves into voters AND landowners.  The latter half of
> -that formula never got off the ground.  Grant's troops started giving
> -slavemasters "their" plantations back before the dust from the war had
> even
> -settled.
> 
> Reconstruction was what it was-- which was a civil rights and voting
> rights
> victory.  Many people wanted more in the economic sphere, but that's not
> what happened.  And the question is why Reconstruction as it was, not what
> people wished it was, was destroyed by Klan violence in the South.
> 
> And when the Supreme Court declared that the Klan and its sister
> organizations could not be prosecuted under federal law, it gave them full
> freedom to end Reconstruction.   That was what caused the destruction of
> Reconstruction and led to another century of Jim Crow subjugation in the
> South.
> 
> 
> Nathan Newman
> 
> 
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