Why doesn the abolition of slavery bring an end to anti-black feelings?
Instead, racism becomes even more virulent at the end of the 19th century. If one of the markers of America’s racial history is the advent of the plantation, and another marker is the American Revolution, certainly the third stop is the Civil War and Reconstruction that follows. With the Civil War of course there is a reclaiming of the great egalitarian tradition, the great tradition of the revolution, and of the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal. It is upon that foundation upon which emancipation rests. Indeed, one of the things that we see both during the Civil War in the northern states and after the Civil War throughout the nation is a real recession of the color line, a real redrawing of lines in attitudes, in ideas, in laws, that are passed. Which open up the society to equal participation in a variety of different ways. Black people of course are freed, they are made citizens, they participate in the great triumph of the Union. Some 200,000 black men fig
