Black Reconstruction In America

A key theme of Black Reconstruction in America is the role Black Americans played both in winning the Civil War and in Reconstruction governments. In mainstream accounts of this era in the 1930s, the contributions of Black Americans are either overlooked or denigrated. Black Americans were blamed for the failures of Reconstruction while their positive contributions were largely erased from the historical narrative. Du Bois seeks to counter this narrative by illustrating how Black Americans contributed to the Union’s victory and positively impacted Reconstruction government. He also argues that Black Reconstruction politicians were not more corrupt than their white counterparts and that, often, graft was led by white planters, scalawags, and carpetbaggers.

Du Bois provides immense detail about the role of Black Americans during the Civil War era. In the South, Black Americans played two important roles in supporting Union victory. First, during the war, many enslaved Black Americans escaped to the North or to Union-controlled territory. This deprived the South of the agricultural labor they required to support the war effort, while supplementing the Union Army’s efforts through building roads, growing crops, and other support. As Du Bois writes, “this withdrawal and bestowal of his labor decided the war” (51).