The dream of reconstruction

A quick thought... I'm reading my texts for a J-Term (January) class. Just learned something that either didn't stick, or wasn't taught, in history class. During the reconstruction, post civil war, people in southern states turned out in record numbers to vote. Setting aside the fact the women were denied the vote at that time, the fact is that previously disenfranchised people, including poor whites, were having a say in government for the first time. This is the time when public education was first founded in a serious way in the United States of America. What an amazing legacy. At that time there were two black Senators in the US Senate. (A high-water mark we are having a hard time eclipsing more than 100 years later!)

This is also the time when priviliged individuals, who were used to concentrating the community's wealth into their own pockets, reacted. They responded with a "states rights" argument, and an anti-socialism argument, and a campaign to discredit black people and working class people. The campaign succeeded, eliminating all but a few token people of color in positions of power by 1876. The campaign included violence, in the form of the KKK and others, in a terrorist action that used intimidation and assassination to eliminate the progress made during reconstruction.

The paralells to our current debates are chilling. The individuals who are calling for "the good old days", states rights, capitalism uber-allis, and a demonization of people of color and poor people, are continuing the tradition that partnered with lynchings, disenfranchisement, and oppression until, at least, the civil rights era of the 60's, and in reality, until now.

Frankly I really, really, do not want to go back to the "good old days" because those were the days of slavery, where women "knew their place", and immigrants and free people of color were pitted against each other. Some days I have some real trouble telling those days from these. Other days I'm very very grateful for the civil rights struggle led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Frederick Douglass through Martin Luther King and now... Moveon.com.

Let the dream of true democracy that was expressed so fervently during reconstruction never die, and may we all continue the struggle for human rights and dignity. Senator Kennedy was one of our companions in that struggle. I thank him for all the good he was able to achieve, and hope that we can remain faithful to the work that must be done.