legitimately white progressive voices in washington, of course, was charles sumner who writes a really good civil rights act which is very, very similar to the 1960s civil rights act. and as he's dying, his last words are pass my act. it finally does get passed in 1875, and the supreme court mostly staffed by northerners strikes it down. i'm not suggesting there's not a lot of blame to go around, but johnson's crime is there is this kind of one moment where if anybody in washington had here's the deal, this is the way it's going to be, and there will not be plaque codes. you don't have to like your neighbor, but we're not going to go back. the jawments longstreets would have won in the south. but there's a lot of people that one can look back on in history and pick on. >> so what's the roll of the enforcement act of 1870, the ku klux klan act? are these, i mean, like in the

civil rights movement of the 1960s this is, like, a legal strategy. to what extent are activists responsible for getting these laws passed? do these laws provide resources that are being ute rised? is -- are there, like, public/civil partnerships to advance the cause? >> i think -- yeah, the klan act in 1870 responds to the ease of the militant, organized klan. and it allows for grant to really crack down and he's allowed to declare martial law. and his attorney general who actually is a southerner who's like longstreet, dislikes this whole idea of white democrats getting in the way of democracy and voting rights, they really crack down. but problem is they could crack down on, essentially, kind of large scale organized groups who are wearing hoods and robes. and, again, you know, smart vigilantes know you don't play that, because all they have to do is find one guy in the local

klan unit. he names all of his bulledties and his -- buddies and his cousins. but those four guys that walk to some guy's house in the dead of night and shoot him in the morning, those villains are hard to find. it's similar my good at dealing with very large groups, and the response is just not being large groups. it's probably grant's, i think, sort of peak of activism in his first term. then, of course, he becomes very mired in scandal in his second term. what i found interesting, though, is for me the problem with grant's scandal -- and, of course, grant personally isn't involved in scandal. atrocious judgment in putting people in his cabinet who were there to just kind of, you know, take. one can only focus on so much. and so the grant administration is spending all of its time and energy dealing with scandals, it

can't deal with this ore problem in the south. what's interesting though is, you know, grant's still fairly young and toy toes with the idea of a third term in 1880. and one of the sources i used a lot was ore black congressman representing mississippi. he at the time is the only black senator. and so activists, blacks from all over the country -- california, virginia, new york -- are writing to him and sawing, you know, can you do this, can you do this? can you please get grant to run for a third term in 1880 which is not to say that black activists are happy with the grant scandals, but on a bounce scale, the scandals and white vigilante i feel, he's the one guy they figure has the military background and the ability, the name to kind of crack down on southern democrats. and so they want him back. and, of course, he had -- the party doesn't want him back, and that's kind of the end of that.

black americans really regard grant as a great guy.

they're not allowed to succeed, so that was what i found kind of the most obvious and yes, depreg comparison. yes, sir. >> yes. i'm intrigued by the idea that there were black activists during that period. how can we find out more about -- besides reading your book, about who these individuals were --

>> well, i'd start with reading the book. [laughter] >> okay. and my second part, why are all american history books so awful in the way they presented what happened in reconstruction? i mean, some of the drawings they show just really, really just horrible as to what was not true. i can understand the southern textbooks in the south, but all over the country. so that's really -- i don't understand that at all. >> well, many response to your first question, there actually are good biographies of people like robert smalls, and they're all in the footnotes. and there are, you know, quite often dissertations that have been reviewed and published, so they're very, very good, they're just kind of flying under the radar, and they're not well known. if you go on this bookstore's web site, you can find people like smalls and george henry white. certainly, textbooks are getting better, and certainly college textbooks are getting ready in

depicting reconstruction. and, again, it's unfair to pick on the bad arizona textbooks of the 970s. -- 1970s. one does not want to know what's in a current textbook in texas. of course, they're busy rewriting their own standards. part of it is popular memory and culture, and trying to win, you know, the early 20th century cultural war. and it is a kind of a classic image people have because there's a scene in "gone with the wind" where there's a carpetbagger and a black activist sitting in a carriage, and the activist is dressed like a clown. at least the carpet bag we are's allowed to dress with dignity, but he's dressed in this outlandish way. my students have almost never seen gone with the wind, but be you asked them what happened in atlanta, they will all tell you what was burned. well, not really. the warehouses and a few houses

and, of course, it's burned in the movie because they're burning the king kong set in southern california. that's what you're watching burn in gone with the wind, king kong's wall. so i think those kinds of things pop up in popular culture x they don't -- and they don't go away. not that long ago there was a tnt film about the assassination of lincoln, and the final thing you're watching is, well, you know, lincoln dies, and those nasty radicals take over, they want to punish the south. and this isn't the 1960s, this was maybe ten years ago made by a major television network. so i think those ideas are still out there, and it's our job to kind of combat them. the people who are a terrible reputation are carpetbaggers. any white woman could make $60 a month teaching school in the north.

they're not doing that for the money, they're doing that because they really believe this changing america. and, again, quite often evangelicals and their spirit has told them to go forth and kind of fix the world. if you really want to steal money, work for boss tweed. so the fact that, you know, these images still remain are very troubling. >> thank you. >> that was a great question. thank you. >> think that's got to be it. >> oh, well, thank you. [applause] >> thank you all again so much for coming. there are books to purchase at the front of the store. please fold up your chair and come back in and get a book signed. and line up to my lefthe