![]() ![]() “Nothing is going to happen until after the election, I’m sure,” Foner said. While the Reconstruction era included an expansion of voting rights to African Americans - albeit largely unenforced - economic justice was not pursued.Īnd while the civil rights movement about a century later yielded equal access to opportunity, Foner said much of the racial injustice protests today are centered around the economic component of freedom. ![]() And our society has never allowed African Americans to accumulate money and assets the way white families have.” It’s not like income from a job, which comes in every week or every month. “Family assets are what is built up over time. “That’s the legacy of history,” Foner said. But a reexamination of the period - and the economic promises to African Americans that went unmet - can help explain some of the disparities seen today, in which the assets held by Black family assets are, on average, 10 percent that of white families. ![]() ![]() Historian Eric Foner said misconceptions about the Reconstruction era helped uphold white supremacy in the South, and a greater understanding of the period can provide context for the economic demands of Black protesters today.įoner told Hill.TV that Reconstruction was portrayed by early 20th century historians as a corrupt era, and that the advent of Jim Crow laws helped restore governance in the South. ![]()
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