In the Wake of War

¶ … War

Chapter 17 entitled "In the Wake of War," chronicles the political aftermath of the American Civil War, the Reconstruction Era, and the settlement of the American West during the latter half of the 19th century. In the words of the chapter, although civil conflict had been stemmed in America, there were just as many new problems for the emerging union as there were new, proffered solutions regarding racial tensions in the wake of reunification. Many of these problems were 'solved' with political half-measures as the triumphs of self-interest of politicians wishing to capitalize upon the South's weakened state became ascendant over the real interests of Blacks in the union. The promises made to African-Americans were eventually subsumed to the perceived needs of a unified nation and an ascendant federal congress.

The ultimate aftermath of the war saw only a technically freed African-American people, but a people whose rights were still trampled upon by a majority white Southern population, through enforcement mechanisms such as poll taxes, restrictive sharecropping practices, and prejudicial legislation ultimately endorsed by the Supreme Court, such as the ideology of 'separate but equal' enshrined in Plessy v. Ferguson. The Klu Klux Klan became a de facto kind of renegade police of the Black race, and even popular African-American social advocates such as Booker T. Washington advocated a conservative or reasonable campaign as a champion of Black rights, or 'put down your bucket' where you find it now doctrine -- in the false hope that racial tensions and limitations of Black circumstances in America would somehow improve of their own accord.