Racism, Revolution, Reaction, 1861-1877: The Rise and Fall of Radical Reconstruction

by Peter Camejo

The challenges--ranging from literacy drives to land reform--confronted by the popular revolutionary governments of Radical Reconstruction that arose in the United States following the Civil War, and the counterrevolution that subsequently overthrew them. Photos, engravings from news periodicals, notes, bibliography, index.

Genres: Nonfiction, History

307 pages, Paperback

First published December 12, 1996

Reviews

[Feargal McGovern · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great history of the class dynamics that drove and eventually undermined radical reconstruction of the civil war

[Joseph Amoriello · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an interesting read. It is baffling how much of american history is left out of k-12 schooling. we are expected to believe that after the civil war, lincoln and grant wanted to completely flip the southern society on its head and introduce industrialism to the south, and that andrew johnson changed everyone’s mind and everyone was happily ever after until the first world war. this diluted history is so ignorantly damaging to understanding the struggles of black americans in this period. it is paramount to know that the franchises and liberties that americans can claim to enjoy are only available to those who are capital holders. the foundation of the united states is built upon systems that are intended to benefit a specific in-group and to leave out the rest. the transition from black-run radical reconstruction governments to the racist redeemers and once again to the liberal northerners did nothing to change the relationship between those in power and the black majority population in the south as secondary citizens, it only shifted the means in which the capitalist elites held their wealth, from farmland and plantations to railroads, banks, and manufacturing. as camejo makes glaringly obvious, a workers populist revolution would be the necessary action to realize the total societal liberation of black americans from the hands of capitalism that have worked since 1776 to keep them down.

additionally, in reading, i have realized there are some subjects in history in which americans are far too ignorant and uneducated in. so, here are some of what i would believe to be essential subjects to know in united states history:

debt peonage
convict leasing
anti-lynching laws (there are none)
election of 1876
rutherford b hayes
shays’s rebellion
thermidor
black codes (more than just jim crow laws)

this is a starter course that would hopefully open the eyes of many to the disgusting horrors of the period following the civil war that we know as reconstruction.

[Evan Streeby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid Marxist history of reconstruction and its downfall that offers convincing arguments regarding capitalist complicity and intensifying of black disenfranchisement, as opposed to them being strictly a result of a “return of the slavocracy”. I appreciate the emphasis on the failures the union forcing meaningful land reform and the unwillingness of conservative politicians to protect black rights, recognizing how such things would’ve resulted in a vastly different socio-political outcomes in modernity. My main critique is a couple of claims by the author that may or may not be substantiated, but were tangential to the material and had no citation.

Tough, tough read; both for the subject matter and the density of information

[Jay Rothermel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Racism, Revolution, Reaction, 1861–1877
The Rise and Fall of Radical Reconstruction By Peter Camejo
http://www.pathfinderpress.com/s.nl/i...
______________

The title of this modest book tells us it covers the period 1861–1877. It actually provides the reader with a Marxist history of the first 200 years of U.S. history.

Camejo tells the dramatic story of Radical Reconstruction with skill and economy. He also gives us a Marxist analysis of Reconstruction's historiography.

A great resource.

[Courtney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book to balance out the crap I was taught in high school.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasn't overly familiar with the details of the history covered so the book filled a bit of a gap for me. It does a lot more than that though, putting the US' "second revolution", as Camejo puts it, into it's broader international, historical and political context. Most of all it is a big reminder of what counter-revolutionary racist violence looks like. Especially pertinent to current circumstances in the US was the point that the racist terrorist groups then were emboldened when their murderous actions met with few consequences. Camejo argues, convincingly enough, that the overthrow of the radicals by the Jim Crow democrats was backed by the industrialists, rather than a return of the slaveowning plantation owners as was (apparently) the predominant argument of much earlier history.

[Willard Brickey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Peter Camejo was Ralph Nader's presidential running mate in 2004 aa well as the Socialist Workers' Party's presidential candidate in 1976. This book is an attempt at a Marxist analysis of Reconstruction, written at least in part as a response to earlier similarly motivated books.
The book is interesting and informative when he sticks to the historical narrative, but it is mortally flawed by the distortions inflicted by observing the story through the lenses of class analysis and economic determinism. In fact, the book's biggeat virtue is in illustrating how grossly such a perapective can get in the way of the facts.

[Marc Lichtman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Peter Camejo frequently avoided facts in his talks bordering on demagogy, and usually shunned research. But in this book, he gives a short, readable Marxist interpretation of the "the rise and fall of Radical Reconstruction." He had help from several people who knew more than he did. Some of his views I'm dubious about--like the idea that overwhelmingly the old Southern ruling class was supplanted by "carpet baggers." But it's well worth reading. It took me a bunch of research to find out what he was talking about in saying that Thomas Wentworth Higginson became a racist. It's based on one letter, written when he was quite old, and possibly inebriated. His more general point that the Thermidorean reaction affected almost everyone, North and South, is absolutely true.

Read Du Bois Black Reconstruction in America 1860-1880, (ignoring the "dictatorship of the Black proletariat" concept), Eric Foner's Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution 1863-1877, and other works as well. But don't ignore this.

And be sure to read The Civil War in the United States, although unfortunately the introduction is worthless.