Reconstruction witnessed some successes in bringing equality, liberty, and justice for African Americans. Brooks D. Simpson and John C. Waugh explore the lasting impact of Reconstruction policies on American principles.

Join BRI Senior Teaching Fellow Tony Williams as he sits down with historian LeeAnna Keith, contributor to BRI’s new Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness textbook on the immense obstacles that African Americans continued to encounter during the Reconstruction era and into the twentieth century. Keith explains how African Americans suffered tragic racial violence and white supremacy during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, despite constitutional protections in the Reconstruction Amendments, the 13th Amendment, 14th Amendment, and 15th Amendments. She also touches on an array of other important postwar developments, such as the segregation of African Americans under Jim Crow laws and various restrictions on black civil rights. Finally, Keith finds encouragement in the influential ideas of W.E.B. DuBois and Booker T. Washington for justice and equality and the civil rights movement of the twentieth century.

BRI Senior Teaching Fellow Tony Williams sits down with Foundation Professor of History at Arizona State University and Civil War and Reconstruction expert, Dr. Brooks Simpson, to discuss the tumultuous period of Reconstruction and how the country addressed African American rights after the Civil War. Simpson delves into the justice and injustice of the policies and laws of Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, and Congress. What successes were achieved by African Americans during Reconstruction? How were African-American rights curtailed by white supremacist violence and legalized discrimination?