Make Good the Promises

Reclaiming Reconstruction and Its Legacies

Kinshasha Holman Conwill, Paul Gardullo

• Publisher: Amistad
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN: 9780063160644
• eBook ISBN: 9780063160668
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: African American History
• Index: History

"A powerful and illuminating exploration that shows the Black struggle during the Reconstruction era for a multiracial democracy." —Ibram X. Kendi, National Book Award–winning author

With a Foreword by Pulitzer Prize–winning author and historian Eric Foner and a preface by veteran museum director and historian Spencer Crew

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 eighty images from the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture exhibit, 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.

"This beautiful collection reveals why Reconstruction belongs at the center of Black history and, indeed, all of American history." —Kate Masur, author of Until Justice Be Done

Index

A specific form of pagination for this digital edition has been developed to match the print edition from which the index was created. If the application you are reading this on supports this feature, the page references noted in this index should align. At this time, however, not all digital devices support this functionality. Therefore, we encourage you to please use your device’s search capabilities to locate a specific entry.

Page numbers followed by ƒ refer to figures and captions.

A

Abbeville, Alabama, 107

Aberdeen, Mississippi, 120

“Address to the Nations of the World” (Du Bois), 28

African American Policy Forum, 110

African Methodist Episcopal Church, 192

Alabama, 57, 182; Black codes in, 52; education in, 72; readmission to US, 73; secession of, 38; voting restrictions, 77

Alabama Memorial Preservation Act, 182

Alabama Penny Savings and Loan Company, Birmingham, Alabama, 76

Alexandria, Virginia, 53

American Dilemma, An (Myrdal), 10

American Dream, 140, 149, 153

American Historical Review, 186

American Missionary Association, 70, 192

American Tract Society, 190f

American West, 28, 140

AME Zion congregations, 71

Amnesty Act, 74

Anderson, Tanisha, 110

Andrews Chapel, New Bern, North Carolina, 71

Angola, Louisiana State Penitentiary, 31

Anthony, Susan B., 96, 104

anti-Blackness, 90

anti-lynching campaigns, 19

anti-lynching laws, 127

Anti-Peonage Act of 1867, 63

Appomattox Court House, Virginia, 40, 71

Arbery, Ahmaud, 175

Arkansas, 57; Black codes in, 52; readmission to US, 73; secession of, 38; voting restrictions, 77

Arlington National Cemetery, 30

Army of Northern Virginia, 40

Arthur, Chester A., 76

Article 13 (Joint Resolution No. 80), 39–40

Article of War of 1862, 43–44, 46

Asheville, North Carolina, 146–47

Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, 192–93

Atlanta, Georgia, 27

Atlanta City Council, 73

“Atlanta Compromise” speech (Booker T. Washington), 77

Atlanta Riot, 126

Atlanta University, Atlanta, Georgia, 192

Atlantic, The, 178

Azor (Liberian ship), 75

B

Bailey, William, 163

Bailey family, 160

Baltimore, Maryland, 31; Fifteenth Amendment parade, 59, 60–61f

Barbados, 158

Barbour County, Alabama, 74

Barnwell, Hagar, 53

Beaufort, South Carolina, 43f, 163

Before the Mayflower (Bennett), 193

Belle Ville, Georgia, 65

Belser, Carroll, 156, 170, 171

Bench by the Road Project, 150

benevolent organizations, 63

Bennett, Lerone, Jr., 193

Berlin, Germany, 34f

Berlin, Ira, 115

Berry, John, 53

Birth of a Nation, The (Griffith), 30, 179, 181, 185

Black Baptists, 72

Black church, 17, 72, 91f, 192; establishment of, 13; as target of racial terror, 130f

Black codes, 41–42, 51–52, 55, 71; condemnation of, 54; eliminated in Iowa, 58; responses to, 57

Black History Month, 192, 193f

Black Lives Matter, 19, 85, 129, 175, 176, 195; demonstrations, 33f, 34f

Black National Convention (2020), 149

Black Panther Party, 128

Black Reconstruction in America: Toward a History of the Part Which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860–1880 (Du Bois), 16, 28, 125, 186, 195

Bland, Sandra, 110

Boley, Oklahoma, 141f

Bombardment of Fort Sumter by the Batteries of the Confederate States, April 13, 1861, 40f

border states, 39, 44, 56

Boston, Massachusetts, 185

Bouchet, Edward Alexander, 75

boycotts, 107, 188, 195

Brazil, 23

Brentsville, Virginia, 53

Brown, Elsa Barkley, 93, 97–98

Brown, Mary, 135

Brown, Michael, 31, 209f

Brown, Michael, Sr., 209f

Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, 145

Brown v. Board of Education, 69, 81

Bruce, Blanche Kelso, 70f, 74

Buffalo Soldiers, 72

Bumpurs, Eleanor, 110

Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands (Freedmen’s Bureau), 2f, 52–54, 65, 66, 71, 72, 120, 138, 138f, 164, 165; discontinuation of, 73, 74; schools and, 190, 191f, 195

Burroughs, Nannie Helen, 193

“Bury Me in a Free Land” (Harper), 21

Butler, Benjamin, 70

C

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Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Epigraph
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Introduction
• Reconstructing America: An Overview
• Timeline Reconstructing America: 1861–1896
• Legacies of Liberation
• Legacies of Violence
• Legacies of Repair
• Legacies of Place
• Legacies of Belief
• Acknowledgments
• Appendix A
• Appendix B
• Bibliography
• Contributors
• Index
• About the Authors
• Copyright
• About the Publisher