Black Reconstruction

"Black Reconstruction in America" is a book by W.E.B. Du Bois, first published in 1935. It is revisionist approach to looking at the Reconstruction of the south after its defeat in the American civil war. Since Du Bois was known for his Marxism, it is not surprising that this book takes a Marxist approach to looking at reconstruction. The essential argument of the text is that the Black and White laborers, who are the proletariat, were divided after the civil war on the lines of race, and as such were unable to stand together against the white propertied class, the bourgeoisie. This to Du Bois was the failure of reconstruction and the reason for the rise of the Jim Crow laws, and other such injustices.

"Reconstruction and Its Benefits"

Du Bois' first essay on the topic was "Reconstruction and Its Benefits" delivered before the American Historical Association on 30 December, 1909 in New York City. Du Bois was at that time a professor at Atlanta University, and was sent the money to come to New York by his former teacher Albert Bushnell Hart. William Archibald Dunning, leader of the Dunningites was present at the presentation and spoke of the paper in high terms. The paper was published in the July 1910 issue of "The American Historical Review", but had little impact. The overwhelming viewpoint presented by James Pike in "The Prostrate State", (1878), was that there had been no benefits from reconstruction. The denigration of African American involvement in the Reconstruction was also evident in Woodrow Wilson's "Division and Reunion, 1829 - 1889", (1893), and James Ford Rhodes' "History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850", (1906). Various Dunningite tracts emerged from Columbia University such as James Garner's "Reconstruction in Mississippi" (1901), Walter Lynwood Fleming's "Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama" (1905), and Thomas Staples' "Reconstruction in Arkansas, 1862-1874" (1923). Until now DuBois' assertion that Columbia University and Johns Hopkins University, which President Woodrow Wilson had earlier attended and received his doctorate, were the two major centers where publications with such views were produced, has yet to have any impact even among those who celebrate him as a founder of the social sciences in general, the social sciences from a black, Africa, or Pan-African perspective, and of whiteness studies.. ISBN 0684856573