Reconstruction for Mississippi’s Black and White citizens was particularly intense. And shall we not best guide humanity by telling the truth about all this, so far as the truth is ascertainable?” Du Bois wrote, "Nations reel and stagger on their way they make hideous mistakes they commit frightful wrongs they do great and beautiful things. Du Bois, the African American scholar who wrote Black Reconstruction in America (published in 1935) in order to challenge the racist interpretations of the period that dominated in the early 20th century, encouraged America to explore an honest history of the time. In many ways, Reconstruction is an unfinished revolution and an underappreciated period in history. Reconstruction is basically the first decade or so after the Civil War when Mississippi and the nation struggled with economic, social, and political challenges that arose from the military defeat of the South and the end of slavery. ![]() From the enforcement of the rights of citizens to the stubborn problems of economic and racial justice, the issues central to Reconstruction are as old as the American republic, and as contemporary as the inequalities that still afflict our society.” (Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1836-1877 (1988). ![]() The effort produced a sweeping redefinition of the nation's public life and a violent reaction that ultimately destroyed much, but by no means all, of what had been accomplished. “Over a century ago, prodded by the demands of four million men and women just emerging from slavery, Americans made their first attempt to live up to the noble professions of their political creed - something few societies have ever done.
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