Still Reconstructing

By ROB PATTERSON

When Barack Obama won the South Carolina Democratic primary in 2008, I thought, hmm, maybe we’re in a post-racial America. Not long after he was elected president, I had to conclude I was dead wrong.

Anyone wanting like me to know how and why white supremacy still persists will be as well-served as I was by watching the 2019 PBS series, “Reconstruction: America After the Civil War.” The four-part documentary, helmed by noted filmmaker and author Henry Louis Gates, Jr., offers telling insight on how our nation never completed the process begun after the Civil War to reconcile both the elements that characterized the Southern states’ rebellion and life for African-Americans in the former Confederacy.

At first, as the film initially shows, former slaves began to enjoy the benefits of freedom and full citizenship in American life. They were elected to public offices and were able to pursue educational, vocational and social opportunities that they had been denied. The first decade or so following the conflict was an all-too-brief “golden age” in which the promises of freedom manifested to create a genuine “new South.” As one watches this unfold in the first two hours of the series, there’s both a thrill about what was accomplished and might have been and a chill from how that was lost.

Because, alas, that logical and desired outcome to the end of slavery did not last. A lack of political will and leadership in Washington, incompetence and corruption on a local level, and the reassertion of white dominance through intimidation and violence halted Black progress and circled the Southern states back around to a two-tier system where African-Americans were reduced to economic, political and social servitude that was nearly as soul destroying as slavery.

During that process arose a number of pernicious myths and attitudes that we, distressingly, continue to witness today. One was the “Lost Cause” notion regarding the Confederacy and how it became iconic throughout the South, and formed a dangerous white Southern identity. It posits that the Civil War was not about slavery, which is nonsense. Another was the many clichés about Blacks as lesser beings than whites, perpetuated through popular culture and entertainment.

And of course, there’s the secret society of the Ku Klux Klan and the violence perpetuated against African-Americans. Lynchings may be a thing of the past. But police harassment, abuse and shootings persist in such attitudes and power plays.

The doc shows how the derailment of Reconstruction led to the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and ‘60s, which, being born in 1964, I grew up with. Again, and in a similar cycle as with Reconstruction, progress was made. But then the persistent racist attitudes that Reconstruction was intended to ameliorate seeped back into the national consciousness.

The movement to eliminate Confederate statues and memorials makes perfect sense after you watch the “Reconstuction” series. Doing as much as can be to pull down the stars and bars and remove them from state flags is also valiant effort to remove these insidious symbols.

So we’re back where we were, in some ways, in both the 1860s after the war and then the 1960s. “Reconstruction” reminds us of how its unfinished business remains so, and hopefully inspires we the good people to strive to overcome prejudice and build a better and fairer society.

Populist Picks

Feature Film: “Harriet” – Since the movement to have Harriet Tubman replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill has recently resurged, this 2019 release is a good place to start to learn, if needed, about her life and legacy. It garnered generally good and well-deserved notices from critics, though I found some of it a wee bit hackneyed and clichéd in its honorable intentions. But no matter. Currently screening on HBO, it’s well worth the time.

Musical Album: “Blonde On The Tracks” by Emma Swift – Among some of my favorite albums are collections of Bob Dylan songs by an artist. This new one from the young Australian singer-songwriter Emma Stone was an instant add to that list. It’s great to hear a new reading of the recent Dylan tune “I Contain Multitudes,” which does it sweet justice with her clear tones and savvy gift for phrasing and delivery. Every great singer who gets their hooks into Dylan’s writing reveals new seams of emotional gold and listening pleasure; this one brims with that.

Rob Patterson is a music and entertainment writer in Austin, Texas. Email orca@prismnet.com.

From The Progressive Populist, March 1, 2021

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