The Civil War and Reconstruction Era

(Undergraduates, enroll in 255F; Graduates, enroll in 355F.) This course examines the critical period between 1860, when the first states seceded in defense of enslavement, and 1896, when the Supreme Court's Plessy v. Ferguson decision affirmed the constitutionality of Jim Crow. We will focus, at first, on the crucial role played by African Americans, enslaved and free, in the abolition of slavery and in the fundamental reframing of civil rights effected by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. We will then shift to a close study of the decades-long fight between those who sought to defend these advances in racial justice and those who sought to constrain them, even invalidate them. Students will engage with primary source material in every class session and will write final papers on topics of their own choosing.