Databases (Open Access)
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Voices Remembering Slavery: Freed People Tell Their Stories The Library of Congress possesses the recordings of former slaves in Voices Remembering Slavery: Freed People Tell Their Stories took place between 1932 and 1975 in nine states. Twenty-three interviewees discuss how they felt about slavery, slaveholders, coercion of slaves, their families, and freedom. Several individuals sing songs, many of which were learned during the time of their enslavement. It is important to note that all of the interviewees spoke sixty or more years after the end of their enslavement, and it is their full lives that are reflected in these recordings. The individuals documented in this presentation have much to say about living as African Americans from the 1870s to the 1930s, and beyond.
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Digital History Digital History explores the Reconstruction Era. With some primary sources and historical analysis, Digital History is an easy way to explore the timeline of Reconstruction.
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The Journal of Negro History- The Ku Klux Klan During Reconstruction: The South Carolina Episode Herbert Shapiro writes the account of the establishment of the KKK and their activity in South Carolina. This includes accounts of racial violence against both newly freed Blacks and government officials sympathetic to Reconstruction efforts
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PBS: Reconstruction Henry Louis Gates Jr. presents a vital new four-hour documentary series on Reconstruction: America After the Civil War. The series explores the transformative years following the American Civil War, when the nation struggled to rebuild itself in the face of profound loss, massive destruction, and revolutionary social change. The twelve years that composed the post-war Reconstruction era (1865-77) witnessed a seismic shift in the meaning and makeup of our democracy, with millions of former slaves and free black people seeking out their rightful place as equal citizens under the law. Though tragically short-lived, this bold democratic experiment was, in the words of W. E. B. Du Bois, a ‘brief moment in the sun’ for African Americans, when they could advance, and achieve, education, exercise their right to vote, and run for and win public office.
Podcast
Documentaries
13th Documentary - Netflix
Filmmaker Ava DuVernay explores the history of racial inequality in the United States, focusing on the fact that the nation's prisons are disproportionately filled with African-Americans.
Story of Reconstruction (CBS Sunday Morning)
In the years following the Civil War known as Reconstruction, newly-freed African American men could finally vote, and would be elected to represent Southerners in Congress. But it was a period that would be transformed into an era of segregation and Jim Crow laws, and be taught to succeeding generations as a failed political experiment. Yet, Reconstruction is now being given its due in school curriculums, and in a new PBS documentary by Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates.
Plessy v. Ferguson Summary - Quimbee
In 1890, the State of Louisiana passed a law that provided for separate railway cars for Caucasian and African American persons. Plessy (defendant) was seven-eighths Caucasian and one-eighth African American, but was considered African American under Louisiana law. He challenged the law by taking a seat in a Caucasian railway car and was asked to move to the African American car by the conductor. When he refused, he was forcibly ejected and imprisoned.
Book Recommendations (SJSU Library Login Required)
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Black reconstruction in America: Toward a history of the part which Black folk played in the attempt to reconstruct democracy in America, 1860-1880
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Call Number: E668 .D83 1969ISBN: 9781351376594Publication Date: 1969 -
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Reconstructions : New Perspectives on Postbellum America
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ISBN: 9780195383065Publication Date: 2006
