Witness To Reconstruction

In the wake of the Civil War, Constance Fenimore Woolson became one of the first northern observers to linger in the defeated states from Virginia to Florida. Born in New Hampshire in 1840 and raised in Ohio, she was the grandniece of James Fenimore Cooper and was gaining success as a writer when she departed in 1873 for St. Augustine. During the next six years, she made her way across the South and reported what she saw, first in illustrated travel accounts and then in the poetry, stories, and serialized novels that brought unsettled social relations to the pages of Harper's Monthly, the Atlantic, Scribner's Monthly, Appletons' Journal, and the Galaxy. In the midst of Reconstruction and in print for years to come, Woolson revealed the sharp edges of loss, the sharper summons of opportunity, and the entanglements of northern misperceptions a decade before the waves of well-heeled tourists arrived during the 1880s. This volume's sixteen essays are intent on illuminating, through her example, the neglected world of Reconstruction's backwaters in literary developments that were politically charged and genuinely unpredictable. Drawing upon the postcolonial and transnational perspectives of New Southern Studies, as well as the cultural history, intellectual genealogy, and feminist priorities that lend urgency to the portraits of the global South, this collection investigates the mysterious, ravaged territory of a defeated nation as curious northern readers first saw it.

W. E. B. Du Bois was a public intellectual, sociologist, and activist on behalf of the African American community. He profoundly shaped black political culture in the United States through his founding role in the NAACP, as well as internationally through the Pan-African movement. Du Bois's sociological and historical research on African-American communities and culture broke ground in many areas, including the history of the post-Civil War Reconstruction period. Du Bois was also a prolific author of novels, autobiographical accounts, innumerable editorials and journalistic pieces, and several works of history. Black Reconstruction in America tells and interprets the story of the twenty years of Reconstruction from the point of view of newly liberated African Americans. Though lambasted by critics at the time of its publication in 1935, Black Reconstruction has only grown in historical and literary importance. In the 1960s it joined the canon of the most influential revisionist historical works. Its greatest achievement is weaving a credible, lyrical historical narrative of the hostile and politically fraught years of 1860-1880 with a powerful critical analysis of the harmful effects of democracy, including Jim Crow laws and other injustices. With a series introduction by editor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and an introduction by David Levering Lewis, this edition is essential for anyone interested in African American history.

Records the military, political, social, and cultural history of the Civil War through photographs, artifacts, period illustrations, maps, essays by historians, and firsthand accounts.

From the events that led to the clash at Gettysburg in July 1863 to the retreat of Robert E. Lee's defeated Confederates, Richard Wheeler uses the words of participants--both Northern and Southern--to bring one of the Civil War's bloodiest, most pivotal battles to life.

In a series of columns published in the African American newspaper "The Christian Recorder, " the young, charismatic preacher Henry McNeal Turner described his experience of the Civil War, first from the perspective of a civilian observer in Washington, D.C., and later, as one of the Union army's first black chaplains. In the halls of Congress, Turner witnessed the debates surrounding emancipation and black enlistment. As army chaplain, Turner dodged "grape" and cannon, comforted the sick and wounded, and settled disputes between white southerners and their former slaves. He was dismayed by the destruction left by Sherman's army in the Carolinas, but buoyed by the bravery displayed by black soldiers in battle. After the war ended, he helped establish churches and schools for the freedmen, who previously had been prohibited from attending either. Throughout his columns, Turner evinces his firm belief in the absolute equality of blacks with whites, and insists on civil rights for all black citizens. In vivid, detailed prose, laced with a combination of trenchant commentary and self-deprecating humor, Turner established himself as more than an observer: he became a distinctive and authoritative voice for the black community, and a leader in the African Methodist Episcopal church. After Reconstruction failed, Turner became disillusioned with the American dream and became a vocal advocate of black emigration to Africa, prefiguring black nationalists such as Marcus Garvey and Malcolm X. Here, however, we see Turner's youthful exuberance and optimism, and his open-eyed wonder at the momentous changes taking place in American society. Well-known in his day, Turner has been relegated to the fringes of African American history, in large part because neither his views nor the forms in which he expressed them were recognized by either the black or white elite. With an introduction by Jean Lee Cole and a foreword by Aaron Sheehan-Dean, "Freedom's Witness: The Civil War Correspondence of Henry McNeal Turner "restores this important figure to the historical and literary record.

After the Civil War, the South was divided into five military districts occupied by Union forces. Out of these regions, a remarkable group of writers emerged. Experiencing the long-lasting ramifications of Reconstruction firsthand, many of these writers sought to translate the era's promise into practice. In fiction, newspaper journalism, and other forms of literature, authors including George Washington Cable, Albion Tourgee, Constance Fenimore Woolson, and Octave Thanet imagined a new South in which freedpeople could prosper as citizens with agency. Radically re-envisioning the role of women in the home, workforce, and marketplace, these writers also made gender a vital concern of their work. Still, working from the South, the authors were often subject to the whims of a northern literary market. Their visions of citizenship depended on their readership's deference to conventional claims of duty, labor, reputation, and property ownership. The circumstances surrounding the production and circulation of their writing blunted the full impact of the period's literary imagination and fostered a drift into the stereotypical depictions and other strictures that marked the rise of Jim Crow. Sharon D. Kennedy-Nolle blends literary history with archival research to assess the significance of Reconstruction literature as a genre. Founded on witness and dream, the pathbreaking work of its writers made an enduring, if at times contradictory, contribution to American literature and history.

Crime Reconstruction, Second Edition is an updated guide to the interpretation of physical evidence, written for the advanced student of forensic science, the practicing forensic generalist and those with multiple forensic specialists. It is designed to assist reconstructionists with understanding their role in the justice system; the development and refinement of case theory’ and the limits of physical evidence interpretation. Chisum and Turvey begin with chapters on the history and ethics of crime reconstruction and then shift to the more applied subjects of reconstruction methodology and practice standards. The volume concludes with chapters on courtroom conduct and evidence admissibility to prepare forensic reconstructionists for what awaits them when they take the witness stand. Crime Reconstruction, Second Edition, remains an unparalleled watershed collaborative effort by internationally known, qualified, and respected forensic science practitioner holding generations of case experience among them. Forensic pioneer such as W. Jerry Chisum, John D. DeHaan, John I. Thorton, and Brent E. Turvey contribute chapters on crime scene investigation, arson reconstruction, trace evidence interpretation, advanced bloodstain interpretation, and ethics. Other chapters cover the subjects of shooting incident reconstruction, interpreting digital evidence, staged crime scenes, and examiner bias. Rarely have so many forensic giants collaborated, and never before have the natural limits of physical evidence been made so clear. Updates to the majority of chapters, to comply with the NAS Report New chapters on forensic science, crime scene investigation, wound pattern analysis, sexual assault reconstruction, and report writing Updated with key terms, chapter summaries, discussion questions, and a comprehensive glossary; ideal for those teaching forensic science and crime reconstruction subjects at the college level Provides clear practice standards and ethical guidelines for the practicing forensic scientist

A POWERFUL AND INSPIRING RECORD OF ONE OF THE MOST SIGNIFICANT PERIODS IN AMERICA'S HISTORY, MY SOUL IS A WITNESS PRESENTS THE FULL HISTORIC SCOPE OF THE HARD-FOUGHT BATTLE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS. From the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision, in which legal segregation in public schools was declared unconstitutional, the Nashville sit-ins, and the Freedom Rides to the March on Washington, Bloody Sunday, the march from Selma to Montgomery, and the subsequent passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 -- and everything in between -- My Soul Is a Witness is the first comprehensive book-length chronology of the civil rights era in America. My Soul Is a Witness extends the examination of civil rights activities between 1954 and 1965 beyond the southern states to include the rest of the country. Although Martin Luther King, Jr., was a central towering figure of the era, this volume shifts the focus to the thousands of people, places, and events that the Civil Rights Movement encompassed. And while the movement began in the arena of education, My Soul Is a Witness covers events in the areas of employment, public accommodations, housing, voting rights, religion, entertainment, sports, and the military. The more than 2,500 entries are based on information found in articles and reports published in three sources: The New York Times, Jet magazine, and the Southern School News. The basic chronology is supplemented with longer features that explore topics in greater depth as well as highlight issues well known at the time but largely unknown today by scholars and the general public.

The inspirational saga of one man's fight to enfranchise his community Witness to the Truth tells the extraordinary life story of a grassroots human rights leader and his courageous campaign to win the right to vote for the African Americans of Lake Providence, Louisiana. Born in 1901 in a small, almost all-black parish, John H. Scott grew up in a community where black businesses, schools, and neighborhoods thrived in isolation from the white population. The settlement appeared self-sufficient and independent—but all was not as it seemed. From Reconstruction until the 1960s, African Americans still were not allowed to register and vote. Scott, a minister and farmer, proceeded to redress this inequality. Ultimately convincing Attorney General Robert Kennedy to participate in his crusade, Scott led a twenty-five year struggle that graphically illustrates how persistent efforts by local citizens translated into a national movement. Told in Scott's own words, Witness to the Truth recounts the complex tyranny of southern race relations in Louisiana. Raised by grandparents who lived during slavery, Scott grew up learning about the horrors of that institution, and he himself experienced the injustices of Jim Crow laws. Without bitterness or anger, he chronicles almost one hundred years of life in the parish, including migrations between the two world wars, the displacement of African American farmers during the New Deal, and the shocking methods white southerners used to keep African Americans under economic domination and away from the polls. Chapter president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for more than thirty years and a recipient of the A. P. Tureaud Citizens Award, Scott embodied the persistence, strength, and raw courage required of African American leaders in the rural South, particularly in the 1950s and 1960s. His story illustrates the contributions of local NAACP leaders in advancing the human rights movement. Cleo Scott Brown, Scott's daughter, draws on oral history interviews with her father conducted by historian Joseph Logsdon as the basis for the book. She also uses personal papers, court transcripts, records of the East Carroll chapter of the NAACP, interviews with other East Carroll residents, family recollections, and her own conversations with her father to complete the biography.

This carefully edited selection of testimony from the Ku Klux Klan hearings reveals what is often left out of the discussion of Reconstruction—the central role of violence in shaping its course. The Introduction places the hearings in historical context and draws connections between slavery and post-Emancipation violence. The documents evidence the varieties of violence leveled at freedmen and Republicans, from attacks hinging on land and the franchise to sexual violence and the targeting of black institutions. Document headnotes, a chronology, questions to consider, and a bibliography enrich students’ understanding of the role of violence in the history of Reconstruction.