“Longing hearts could only stand so much longing.”
― Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind

“She couldn't survey the wreck of the world with an air of casual unconcern.”
― Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind

“What possible rationale demanded this many debased representations of the recently freed Black people produced in the final third of the nineteenth century? How many ways can one call a woman or a man a "n*****" or a "c***"? How many watermelons does a person have to devour, how many chickens does an individual have to steal, to make the point that Black people are manifestly, by nature, both gluttons and thieves? Why in the world was it necessary to produce tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of these separate and distinct racist images to demean the status of the newly freed slaves in a set of fixed types and motifs, which reached their perverse apex with the characterizations of Black people during Reconstruction in The Birth of a Nation, in the figures of deracinated Black elected officials and, of course, the black male as rapist? The explanation comes in three words: justifying Jim Crow, or, in three different words, disenfranchising Black voters”
― Henry Louis Gates Jr., Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow

“I believe that there are four institutions in American history that have shaped our approach to race and justice but remain poorly understood. The first, of course, is slavery. This was followed by the reign of terror that shaped the lives of people of color following the collapse of Reconstruction until World War II.

....The third institution, "Jim Crow," is the legalized racial segregation and suppression of basic rights that defined the American apartheid era.

....The fourth institution is mass incarceration.”
― Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy

“Precisely because we have embarked on the great and long venture of demolishing a world that has grown old and of rebuilding it authentically anew, i.e. historically, we must know the tradition. We must know more—i.e. our knowledge must be stricter and more binding—than all the epochs before us, even the most revolutionary. Only the most radical historical knowledge can make us aware of our extraordinary tasks and preserve us from a new wave of mere restoration and uncreative imitation.”
― Martin Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics

“Holography could prosper only in America, a country obsessed with realism, where, if a reconstruction is to be credible, it must be absolutely iconic, a perfect likeness, a “real” copy of the reality being represented.”
― Umberto Eco, Travels In Hyperreality

“Had political exigencies been less pressing, the opposition to government guardianship of Negroes less bitter, and the attachment to the slave system less strong, the social seer can well imagine a far better policy,—a permanent Freedmen’s Bureau, with a national system of Negro schools; a carefully supervised employment and labor office; a system of impartial protection before the regular courts; and such institutions for social betterment as savings-banks, land and building associations, and social settlements. All this vast expenditure of money and brains might have formed a great school of prospective citizenship, and solved in a way we have not yet solved the most perplexing and persistent of the Negro problems.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk

“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. 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. 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

“Events in the African American town of Hamburg, in the Edgefield District of South Carolina, were typical of many others across the former Confederacy where white paramilitary groups mobilized to regain control of state governments. Their aim was simple: prevent African Americans from voting. In July 1876, a few months before the election that gave the presidency to Hayes, a violent rampage in Hamburg abolished the civil rights of freed slaves. Calling itself the Red Shirts, a collection of white supremacists killed six African American men and then murdered four others whom the gang had captured. Benjamin Tillman led the Red shirts; the massacre propelled him to a twenty-four-year career as the most vitriolic racist in the U.S. Senate.

Following the massacre, the terror did not abate. In September, a 'rifle club' of more than 500 whites crossed the Savannah River from Georgia and camped outside Hamburg. A local judge begged the governor to protect the African American population, but to no avail. The rifle club then moved on to the nearby hamlet of Ellenton, killing as many as fifty African Americans. President Ulysses S. Grant then sent in federal troops, who temporarily calmed things down but did not eliminate the ongoing threats.

Employers in the Edgefield District told African Americans they would be fired, and landowners threatened black sharecroppers with eviction if they voted to maintain a biracial state government. When the 1876 election took place, fraudulent white ballots were cast; the total vote in Edgefield substantially exceeded the entire voting age population. Results like these across the state gave segregationist Democrats the margin of victory they needed to seize control of South Carolina's government from the black-white coalition that had held office during Reconstruction. Senator Tillman later bragged that 'the leading white men of Edgefield' had decided to 'seize the first opportunity that the Negroes might offer them to provoke a riot and teach the Negroes a lesson.'

Although a coroner's jury indicted Tillman and ninety-three other Red Shirts for the murders, they were never prosecuted and continued to menace African Americans. Federal troops never came to offer protection. The campaign in Edgefield was of a pattern followed not only in South Carolina but throughout the South.

With African Americans disenfranchised and white supremacists in control, South Carolina instituted a system of segregation and exploitation that persisted for the next century. In 1940, the state legislature erected a statute honoring Tillman on the capitol grounds, and in 1946 Clemson, one of the state's public universities, renamed its main hall in Tillman's honor. It was in this environment that hundreds of thousands of African Americans fled the former Confederacy in the first half of the twentieth century.”
― Richard Rothstein, The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America

“The scheme began to unravel following the Panic of 1873 when railroad investments failed. The bank experienced several runs at the height of the panic. The panic would not have affected the bank if it had been a savings bank, but by 1866, the business of the bank had become…reckless speculation, over-capitalization, stock manipulation, intrigue and bribery, and downright plundering…. In a last ditch effort to save the bank, the Trustees appointed Frederick Douglas as Bank President in March of 1874. Douglass did not ask to be nominated and the Bank Board knew that Douglass had no experience in banking, but they felt that his reputation and popularity would restore confidence to fleeing depositors….Douglas lent the bank $10,000 of his own money to cover the bank’s illiquid assets….Douglass quickly discovered that the bank was full of dead men’s bones, rottenness and corruption. As soon as Douglass realized that the bank was headed towards certain failure, he imposed drastic spending cuts to limit depositors’ losses. He then relayed this information to Congress, underscoring the bank’s insolvency, and declaring that he could no longer ask his people to deposit their money in it. Despite the other Trustees’ attempts to convince Congress otherwise, Congress sided with Douglass, and on June 20, 1874, Congress amended the Charter to authorize the Trustees to end operations. Within a few weeks’ time, the bank’s doors were shut for good on June 29, 1874, leaving 61,131 depositors without access to nearly $3 million dollars in deposits. More than half of accumulated black wealth disappeared through the mismanagement of the Freedman’s Savings Bank. And what is most lamentable…is the fact that only a few of those who embezzled and defrauded the one-time liquid assets of this bank were ever prosecuted….Congress did appoint a commission led by John AJ Cresswell to look into the failure and to recover as much of the deposits as possible. In 1880, Henry Cook testified about the bank failure and said that bank’s depositors were victims of a widespread universal sweeping financial disaster. In other words, it was the Market’s fault, not his. The misdeeds of the bank’s management never came to light.”
― Mehrsa Baradaran, The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap

“Perhaps because the bank was identified with the endeavors of the newly freed negro, wrote historians Kindsor and Sagarin, anyone who dared to raise a cry against the mismanagement was charged with being anti-negro. In as much as the enemies of the negro were not interested in the bank, and the friends were effectively silenced with the anti-negro charge, there was no exposure of the condition of the bank. The belief that the failures of black institutions could not be accurately studied because of the sensitivity of the race issue, whether accurate or not, would be a recurring theme through history.”
― Mehrsa Baradaran, The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap

“To understand and criticise intelligently so vast a work, one must not forget an instant the drift of things in the later sixties. Lee had surrendered, Lincoln was dead, and Johnson and Congress were at loggerheads; the Thirteenth Amendment was adopted, the Fourteenth pending, and the Fifteenth declared in force in 1870. Guerrilla raiding, the ever-present flickering after-flame of war, was spending its forces against the Negroes, and all the Southern land was awakening as from some wild dream to poverty and social revolution. In a time of perfect calm, amid willing neighbors and streaming wealth, the social uplifting of four million slaves to an assured and self-sustaining place in the body politic and economic would have been a herculean task; but when to the inherent difficulties of so delicate and nice a social operation were added the spite and hate of conflict, the hell of war; when suspicion and cruelty were rife, and gaunt Hunger wept beside Bereavement,—in such a case, the work of any instrument of social regeneration was in large part foredoomed to failure. The very name of the [Freedmen's] Bureau stood for a thing in the South which for two centuries and better men had refused even to argue,—that life amid free Negroes was simply unthinkable, the maddest of experiments.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk

“The opposition to Negro education in the South was at first bitter, and showed itself in ashes, insult, and blood; for the South believed an educated Negro to be a dangerous Negro. And the South was not wholly wrong; for education among all kinds of men always has had, and always will have, an element of danger and revolution, of dissatisfaction and discontent. Nevertheless, men strive to know.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk

“Such was the dawn of Freedom; such was the work of the Freedmen’s Bureau, which, summed up in brief, may be epitomized thus: for some fifteen million dollars, beside the sums spent before 1865, and the dole of benevolent societies, this Bureau set going a system of free labor, established a beginning of peasant proprietorship, secured the recognition of black freedmen before courts of law, and founded the free common school in the South. On the other hand, it failed to begin the establishment of good-will between ex-masters and freedmen, to guard its work wholly from paternalistic methods which discouraged self-reliance, and to carry out to any considerable extent its implied promises to furnish the freedmen with land. Its successes were the result of hard work, supplemented by the aid of philanthropists and the eager striving of black men. Its failures were the result of bad local agents, the inherent difficulties of the work, and national neglect.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk

“Morally and practically, the Freedmen’s Bank was part of the Freedmen’s Bureau, although it had no legal connection with it. With the prestige of the government back of it, and a directing board of unusual respectability and national reputation, this banking institution had made a remarkable start in the development of that thrift among black folk which slavery had kept them from knowing. Then in one sad day came the crash,—all the hard-earned dollars of the freedmen disappeared; but that was the least of the loss,—all the faith in saving went too, and much of the faith in men; and that was a loss that a Nation which to-day sneers at Negro shiftlessness has never yet made good. Not even ten additional years of slavery could have done so much to throttle the thrift of the freedmen as the mismanagement and bankruptcy of the series of savings banks chartered by the Nation for their especial aid.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk

“It was rather a choice between suffrage and slavery, after endless blood and gold had flowed to sweep human bondage away. Not a single Southern legislature stood ready to admit a Negro, under any conditions, to the polls; not a single Southern legislature believed free Negro labor was possible without a system of restrictions that took all its freedom away; there was scarcely a white man in the South who did not honestly regard Emancipation as a crime, and its practical nullification as a duty. In such a situation, the granting of the ballot to the black man was a necessity, the very least a guilty nation could grant a wronged race, and the only method of compelling the South to accept the results of the war. Thus Negro suffrage ended a civil war by beginning a race feud. And some felt gratitude toward the race thus sacrificed in its swaddling clothes on the altar of national integrity; and some felt and feel only indifference and contempt.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk

“one consequence of the fact that our popular historical understanding erases roughly 1870 to 1932 from public memory is that many Americans have a distinctly warped view of how resilient american democracy actually is

(11/12/2020 on Twitter)”
― Jamelle Bouie

“The whole nature of how ppl respond to this coup would change if ppl, knew the full history of Reconstruction--and learned it as "white identity based mobs regularly overturned elections whenever a Black person or someone perceived as a Black ally was elected"

(12/12/2020 on Twitter)”
― Kaitlyn Greenidge

“[Donor Countries]
When are we going to understand
That donor countries never donate anything for free.
When are we going to understand
That the only countries that donate
Are those with the biggest role in destruction and ravage?
That such countries only donate
To shape societies and destroyed countries
According to their whims and their desires…
That their only aim is
To keep the defeated
the marginalized
the disempowered
and the impoverished
In that state for as long as they can…
When are we going to understand
That the easiest way to identify and name the big criminals,
Is to take a quick look at the list of donor countries?

[Original poem published in Arabic on November 12, 2022 at ahewar.org]”
― Louis Yako

“He did not long for any other work, for instance that of “reconstruction,” of which the newspapers wrote so much. He had already experienced after the First World War how the flood of words poured down over the ruins, and how in a disastrous way people forgot that the reconstruction of their own small lives was the most urgent and most important work laid before their hands. And so, out of the thousand-fold multiplicity of the small, unreconstructed lives, the disaster had arisen which had devastated the world – and the hearts of the world.”
― Ernst Wiechert, Tidings: A Novel

“And in this beautiful land of ours, the free people who inhabit it, and who have paid such a high price for their freedom, will, in the better days that are to be, surely insist that the architecture of their buildings, public and private, shall be worthy of them.”
― Thomas Johnston, Building Scotland - Past and Future

“By this time, everyone understood that [President] Hayes would adopt a new Southern policy. "As matters look to me now," wrote the chariman of Kansas' Republican state committee on February 22 [1877], "I think the policy of the new administration will be to conciliate the white men of the South. Carpetbaggers to the rear, and niggers take care of yourselves." (p.581)”
― Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution 1863-1877

“That’s how one of my stories that has received the most praise from critics and, especially, from readers came to be published. However, that experience did not prevent me from continuing to rip up manuscripts I didn’t think were publishable, but rather taught me that it’s necessary to tear them in such a way that they can never be pieced back together.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, The Scandal of the Century: And Other Writings

“After another mile or so, he passed a gang of blacks weeding in a tobacco field. They did not notice him. Their heads were down, intent on the work. Hoes rose and fell, rose and fell, not quickly but at a steady pace that would finish the job soon enough to keep the overseer contented-the eternal pace of the slave.

He'd grown used to faster rhythms. He also remembered, from his dealings with the Rivington seen in Rivington itself, that slaves could be made to work to men and from what he'd those rhythms. But why bother? Things got done, either way. Slowing down was part of coming home, too.”
― Harry Turtledove, The Guns of the South

“To build unity requires recognizing the central role of young activists. They are vigorously fighting the attack on this century's Reconstruction. Their anger at today's ugly society often translates into a passionate drive for unity across color lines.”
― Elizabeth Martínez, De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views for a Multi-Colored Century

“I felt like a child. I was a child. I could blow things up but I couldn't put things back together.”
― Jeff VanderMeer, Hummingbird Salamander

“Following Jesus does not mean that we become slaves to rules and regulations that lead to an ordinary life. Just the opposite. Following Jesus means that we become free to reinvent ourselves through the revelation of our true identities as beloved children of God. Through Jesus, we encounter what it really means to be human.”
― Eric Scot English

“The standpoint to be expressed is perfectly clear. The knowledge of having dominion over the world which is part of the Christian Faith, creates strong characters that cannot be shaken. It gives men a feeling of great stability in the vicissitudes of life, a steady purpose in all the activities of this world, an unconditional reliability and fidelity in all the changes of time, an untiring diligence in everything that has to be accomplished.

When the nucleus of a nation is composed of men of this stamp, or when a spirit such as this dominates a people, a wonderful source of strength thus exists for them. For men of this kind guarantee invincible calm, endurance, equability and steadfastness of soul in the spirit of the nation. This spirit can moreover, preserve a nation from inner disintegration and dissolution, and can guide it from an era of destruction into an age of reconstruction, of unity and solidarity.

Consequently the permanent recovery of our German Volk also comes “from within”, that is to say from the sources of holy life dwelling in the depths of the soul by virtue of kinship with God. And precisely in the heroic fight to be won before our Volk can hope to recover from its collapse, there can be no better source of strength than the life-giving streams that flow from the depths of the Godhead into the soul of the nation open to receive them. For the consciousness of having dominion over the world gives God’s children strength to overcome all difficulties, to become indomitable fighters, to ward off every danger in a cheerful spirit, to break down all obstacles boldly and courageously, and form a brave knighthood scorning death and the devil.”
― Cajus Fabricius, Positive Christianity in the Third Reich

“In making soldiers...we first teach men how to stand straight and to look right and left, then to march, etc., and, finally, by gradual discipline, they are brought to move with the precision of machinery.' So, the government, he [Longstreet] concluded, ought to accomplish the great end of Reconstruction 'by gradual steps.' -- from Interview with the Indianapolis Journal, September 24, 1874.”
― Elizabeth Varon, Longstreet: The Confederate General Who Defied the South

“There are millions of Christians today (and in the past) who have denied the obvious implications of such a view of God's earthly kingdom. Nevertheless, very few of them have been ready to deny its theological premises. If you ask them this question — "What area of life today is not under the effects of sin?" — they give the proper answer: none. They give the same answer to the next question: "What area of sin-filled life will be outside of the comprehensive judgment of God at the final judgment?"

But when you ask them the obvious third question, they start squirming: "What area of life today is outside of the legitimate effects of the gospel in transforming evil into good, or spiritual death into life?" The answer is obviously the same — none — but to admit this, modern pietistic Christians would have to abandon their pietism.

What is pietism? Pietism preaches a limited salvation: "individual soul-only, family-only, church-only." It rejects the very idea of the comprehensive redeeming power of the gospel, the transforming power of the Holy Spirit, and the comprehensive responsibility of Christians in history. In this rejection of the gospel's political and judicial effects in history, the pietists agree entirely with modern humanists. There is a secret alliance between them. Christian Reconstruction challenges this alliance. This is why both Christians and humanists despise it.”
― Gary North, Christian Reconstruction: What It Is, What It Isn't