187: A More Perfect Union? The Reconstruction Era

BackStory

History, Education

4.7 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 10 August 2018

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Lately, Americans feel the country is more divided (at least politically) than ever and often wonder how to go about repairing our divisions. Those same questions were asked when the nation started to come back together after the very real split of the Civil War. When Congress passed the first Reconstruction Acts, paving the way for Confederate states to rejoin the Union after the war, many also asked who belonged in the country and what rights they would have. So, in this episode, Ed, Nathan and Joanne explore the central questions of the Reconstruction Era.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Major funding for Backstory is provided by an anonymous donor, the National Endowment for the Humanities,
0:06.0	the University of Virginia, and the Robert and Joseph Cornell Memorial Foundation.
0:14.0	From Virginia Humanities, this is Backstory.
0:23.0	Welcome to Backstory, the show that explores the history behind today's headlines.
0:27.0	I'm Ed Ayers.
0:28.0	I'm Nathan Connolly.
0:29.0	And I'm Joanne Freeman.
0:30.0	If you're new to the podcast, Joanne, Nathan, our friend, Brian Ballet,
0:34.0	and I are all historians.
0:36.0	And every week, we take a topic of the news and explore it across American history.
0:40.0	And today, Joanne, Nathan, and I would like to talk about something that shows up in the news every so often,
0:46.0	but even when it does, it's rarely a headline.
0:48.0	You probably just hear it in passing.
0:50.0	Louisiana's first non-white governor since Reconstruction.
0:54.0	First Black Senator to be elected in the South since Reconstruction.
0:57.0	Cotton prices have skyrocketed to the highest price since Reconstruction.
1:01.0	Reconstruction in 1920s, before in the 1870s.
1:05.0	So I'm going to go out on a limb and say that today shows about Reconstruction.
1:09.0	Very bold, Nathan.
1:11.0	Yes. I like to take chances.
1:13.0	Yes, and your boldness is going to be repaid today, Nathan, because our show today marks the 150th anniversary.
1:21.0	This month of the Military Reconstruction Acts, what people call radical reconstruction.
	...

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