Documenting Reconstruction violence

Please help document violence during the Reconstruction era of American history (1865-1877). As family historians, we, on Geni, are uniquely able to look within our own family stories, and contribute to the historic record.

Documenting Reconstruction Violence: Known and Unknown Horrors

Violence, mass lynchings, and lawlessness enabled white Southerners to create a regime of white supremacy and Black disenfranchisement alongside a new economic order that continued to exploit Black labor.

The historical record is filled with scattered but consistent and devastating descriptions of the terror and brutality that thwarted what should have been a time of hope and promise. Despite the plentiful reports from observers describing the frequent and largely unchecked murders and assaults Black people suffered during the Reconstruction period of 1865 to 1876, there is no established casualty count or reliable total number of victims killed. Quantitative documentation of the violence of this era remains imprecise and incomplete. ...

Source: "Reconstruction in America: Ch. 3 - intro"

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Related projects

Please feel free to add related project or sub projects based around events. Breaking down a large era into smaller and more manageable projects will better organize the topic. Index projects below.

• United States Black History - From Reconstruction to the Present
• Lynched
• Race riots and civil disorder (portal listing sub-projects)

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Resources

1. Reconstruction: United States history at Brittanica
2. Reconstruction era at Wikipedia
3. "Reconstruction in America: Racial Violence after the Civil War." < eji.org >
4. "Reconstruction in America" (video from the Equal Justice Initiative) < youtube >
5. "Reconstruction Period | Goals, Successes & Failures." < study.com >
6. "The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow" < thirteen.org >
7. "Southern Violence During Reconstruction" < pbs.org >
8. Byman, Daniel. "White Supremacy, Terrorism, and the Failure of Reconstruction in the United States." International Security (2021) 46 (1): 53–103. < mit.edu >
9. Equal Justice Initiative. “DOCUMENTING RECONSTRUCTION VIOLENCE: Known and Unknown Horrors.” RECONSTRUCTION IN AMERICA: Racial Violence after the Civil War, 1865-1876. Equal Justice Initiative, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep30690.6.
10. "Remembering Reconstruction: Struggles over the Meaning of America's Most Turbulent Era," published in 2017 by Louisiana State University Press, edited by Carole Emberton and Bruce E. Baker, with an introduction by W. Fitzhugh Brundage, is a collection of ten essays by historians of the Reconstruction era who examine the different collective memories of different social groups from the time of Jim Crow through the post-Civil Rights period. < Wikipedia >