ed but was not. this is led to some interesting speculation as to whether the ship was set up for an attack by churchill or someone in the admiralty. it's interesting. i found no smoking memo. believe me, i would have found a smoking memo if it existed. someone saying, let's let the lusitania go into the irish sea. nothing like that existed. >> tonight at 8:00 eastern and pacific. >> up next on american history tv, lois brown, wesleyan university history professor discusses the relationship between whites and newly freed blacks in the aftermath of the civil war. ms. brown says there was a great deal of racial tension in the

south and north. as a result, slavery was replaced with wage slavery with sharecropping. this was hosted by the vermont humanities council. lois: good morning. it is wonderful to be here today. i have to begin with a sincere thanks to the vermont humanities council, the executive director peter gilbert two amy cunningham, and the staff of vermont humanities for everything in between. thank you to mark for that wonderful introduction, and for inspiring me and all of us with all that you are doing at vermont historical society. i also come with greetings. from the connecticut humanities council to which only days ago i was appointed to the board. david, yes, there is a connecticut board.

yes, we will be calling. yes, we do need you. [applause] i have to say that when i first moved, i stumbled into the civil war in vermont. i was a young assistant professor, didn't really know anyone. i did not yet have a dog. [laughter] i would try to amuse myself on the weekends and one of the things i would do, because i was a romantic, i would drive from amherst to vermont, hit the visitor station, it out of the car, look around, and go home. people would ask me, what did you do this weekend? i went to vermont. it was on one of those trips that i got braver and braver and went up a mountain. beautiful view. i got out of the car and there was an encampment.

as might mention we stepping back into the 1860's. those of you who have been part of or have witnessed historical reenactments, the scene is amazing. once you begin to think in the sights and sounds, you begin to fall. i sat on a bench and convince myself that i was brave enough to walk down. it was the end of the day. i couldn't get past the idea that i would have to go down and be near confederates. i wasn't sure what my status would be. it was that powerful of the moment of reenactment. restoration and return that we all grapple with. we are far five months, almost to the day, that will be the centennial of what was the end of the civil war. we have marked numerous beginnings. retrace the contours, held the

findings, and paid our respects in both well tended and unkempt -- yet, the big anniversary is yet to arrive. we neared the moment of presidential assassination, the last battle of the civil war and the june 1865 revelation in texas that lincoln's p proclamation should have ended slavery there two years before. since the grand celebration has begun, i have been curious about this moment. wondering how america will claim the end. will we see moments of collective violence? will we skip the surrender and go straight to the applications of presidential assassination? will be waived the

considerations of the unfulfilled and tragic air of the reconstruction. will we -- will there be any claims for victory? will those claims suggest implicitly or explicitly unsportsmanlike sorts of ways that quote the other side lost? how will the narrative be retold? how will it be reclaimed? how will this war be re-justified? indeed, when we find ourselves in april of 2015, we will have the mother of all binary oppositions before us. i believe it is in the symbolic debate between those two poles that we had perhaps the best chance to price and behold how are 21st century experienced

this, and how a cap race are still undone and reconfigured from that event. and how legacies of graffiti and resurrection. the timeline of war imposes its own code of civil conduct. it usually has -- the invocation of stability is necessary for a cease-fire and surrender. the very premise of stability, which we may defined as a social act as polite behavior. the oxford english dictionary is a layered source to which i am constantly sending my students. it suggests that stability in addition to standing as an indication of refinement and good breeding is also the

absence of anarchy and disorder. before we breathe a sigh of relief, let us be mindful that civility by democracy and good parenting requires oversight and maintenance. as we survey the civil war and its aftermath, we know how critical and vulnerable of the pairing that it is between civility and bar. commonly held, widely implemented rules of engagement. the united states of the era known as reconstruction -- the united states in the areaera of reconstruction. slavery by another name was restored through sharecropping. newly reformed often masked brotherhoods extended terror.

the list goes on. we must be prepared to knowledge that modes of stability are not all inclusive enterprises. yet, in the unspeakable remnants of war all around, what possibly could finance a civil peace? what civil rights might be attempted? what transformation of progress might enable virtue? as a nation, grappled with the dead and later disease of the war, many sought to memorialize. there was a sense of collective a as for recognition. something plans a documented. so began the effort in the north, and among union veterans, to decorate the graves of union soldiers. yet, more than the declaration

of decoration day was the order of the grand army of the republic. far-reaching as of local remembrance that touted on the heartstrings of a divided nation and required a rereading of the strife. we are going to go this morning to mississippi. there she is in all of her glory. . what is -- -- one source of unkindness took place in jackson, mississippi, what became the city site of war. it was a place that in 1863 was embroiled in the vicksburg campaign undone to cut off

supply lines and bite sherman to conduct the destruction of the city. jackson, to which the confederacy returned after union troops left was a shadow of its former self and useless to its sister city of vicksburg, which was in line for a 47 days siege that would do so much more to weaken the confederate efforts. april 1865 is the date etched into so many southern walls and stones. the day claim to be the first decoration day. it happened in jackson, when the women of the town band together to decorate the graves in the city. they were led by missouri-born susan. this is the greenwood cemetery. there is susan landon va

ughan. she was no ordinary woman. she gathered her colleagues on the evil of what would be the union arrival. she decided, with her friends that the next morning, they would negotiate their own terms of surrender. this was no ordinary southern bell. indeed, during the war, it is yet to be confirmed, but she is a descendent of john adams, a fearless supporter, a nurse, and she smuggled medicine and supplies and any piece of clothing that had including her petticoat and hat. she crossed lines in the name of god, literally. she claimed to be a missionary all the way collecting military details that she would carry to the other side. for all, the decorating of the graves at the greenwood cemetery

wasn't own act of resistance and civil war. it was no ordinary april event. this cause of decorating the graves. it was not women saying, the graves look lonely, let us go and a door in them. the federal troops under taylor would arrive the next day. in the monthly periodical called "the confederate veteran," landon would go on to recall what happened in the 30 years prior. she was the one who scripted it both then and at that moment. she did so in words. here are her reminiscences. i will try tonight go into a southern accent, which is hard. the evening was one of the darkest and the confederate struggle. there were rumors and disasters.

general lee surrendered the army of northern virginia at appomattox. general conthere were conflicted homesteads. mother is, who had with spartan devotion and ascends to join the army with lee and jackson raise their helpless hands in heaven to spend the graves of their slain. to restore, to strengthen mississippi in the hour of surrender. the ages were on bended knees. they fought the shadow of death into the morning. suddenly, that dark midnight two young confederate couriers arrived to and form their

journals in jackson that the confederates were coming. the federals were coming. this meant was about to take place. a young girl played and sung our banners are waiting on vicksburg no more. seizing the stub of a confederate pencil and carrying a blank piece of paper we will meet the next day at the cemetery and commemorate the valor and patriotism. it goes on. the children were the first to kneel in the field of the grounded arms to scatter flowers on southland soldiers heads. every man was covered with beautiful designs, anchors, hearts crowds.

soldiers filled the avenue gazing at the resting places of their comrades. a group of sisters -- a weeping widow mourning her way. a little maiden came with their aprons filled with bluebells like an apron filled the sky. orphans gathered around a bank of blossoms looking upward to the shield of the desolate. mourners and crying of birds and minstrels. mockingbird saying. notes of bugle calls with bir

ursts of battle calls. streaming batters of gold fell over the mountains. finally, enclosing, the dear lady declared, in no ambiguous all-encompassing moment whatsoever, let us keep the day in dear memorial, in reverent remembrance of our heroes angry southland heroes. surrender? what surrender? this is pageantry. civility. a veritable sweet sweet tea that certainly has consequences to the body of as a whole, should it be ingested. so different is his autobiographical account. this goes to the point from

yesterday. as you get older, do you really only remember what did happen? can you remember at all? so different is this account, three decades after. it was issued as an appeal to the daughters of the southland. according to the local net, adam son did not leave after she decorated the graves of the union dead. depending on the accounts, it makes you think that there were hundreds of union stones. if you dig a little deeper -- no pun intended -- you find that there were four. for union stones. none of those i mentioned in the delightful, rich and gorgeous, transformative account that vau ghn gives us great at the time she was saying, i will garner those with pink roses for the mothers and sisters who sobbed

prayers as they marched away. this is not recognized many -- by many as the earliest de decoration day. [indiscernible] he saw this happen. as deborah notes and her mate essay, the real story of decoration day was regarded -- one has to wonder if he was on site as a north and man. he was a yellow educated judge a professor, and a poet who decided that he too would right now having been inspired by this moment of decoration. he published a poem, "the blue and gray," and credited it to

the women of jackson. this work, of course, was just the women at the cemetery. that is a whole other conference. a few live from the poem. they added to our anger forever when they mourned our dead. under the size of judgment day two years and love for the grade. -- grey. this kind of work gives to the cause of reconciliation. mutual sympathy and the universality of death and mourning. how true, david writes, it must have seed to the thousands that would here besi it here it during decoration day.

professor light mentions to -- suggests, before noting, beyond the pain, the emerging reunion had social and political aims. let's pause a moment and think not just about the words published in a decidedly elite journal, such as, "the atlantic monthly," but about the recollections, and the depictions. depicted as both an act of civility during an abating unapologetic family loss. no matter the version of the decoration of the grave, no matter where one starts, one ends up in the same place. the war didn't happen to the nation. it happened to one big southland family that may or may not have had some union land in it.

it is no surprise then to see how quickly the acres of garlands were placed, and not just by ical on paper, but stone as well. we don't have to water far to get to the next chapter of the story. we go to cedar hill cemetery. it plays were some 5000 confederates were entered. we know there was this each. before it was besieged, a methodist preacher had great plans. he went to establish his own city upon a hill. he had a timely death in 1819. he had amassed acres of riverfront land.

the plan was interrupted by yellow fever. when he died, survived only 20 minutes by his wife, elizabeth. he had 13 children and a plantation worked by people. in terms of labor, it is an estimate $25,000 of the enslaved people, coming in at about $15.5 million today. vicksburg caught in the wheeled industry -- even on the eve of civil war, slavery was there. what we know is that vicksburg was bombarded. by sherman. who was a poet and the warrior.

he would appreciate the lovely agnelli is even as he gave the commands for the cannonball default. in a letter to his wife, he noted that a garrison of sums 15,000 men-20,000 men were cooped up in vicksburg. he said the city was now a subject of pride to the confederacy, whose loss would be fatal. he said to his wife, i think we have shot about 25,000 cannonballs and many millions of musket balls. we fire about 100 shots to their one. citizens were literally living in caves for 47 days until july 4, 1853. the cemetery question here -- i kid you not, it is located on madeleine. the vicksburg cemetery --

declared with no small measure of pride, given the anonymous soldiers in the national cemetery, roughly 15 out of every 16 were buried with a marker. it is also worth noting that this may be one of the few cemeteries where there is a stone for a camel. it is decorated on every decoration day. there are contemporary accounts that he was killed by a union sniper. then, it gets a little fuzzy. douglas was cremated, maybe. he was eaten, quite possibly and then his bones were dispersed among the true.

i'm not quite sure what is there. [laughter] he has a stone. buried here, alongside douglas the campbell r confederate soldiers. in the cemetery, where do we find douglas? we find one of the first confederate memorials. as monuments go, it is modest. as one woman, mrs. emerson, who compiled a volume on southern monuments noted that though of no great height, it's design is so artistic -- there it is -- she insist that of no great high its proportions are so just that it would attract attention. its initial portrait of the little monument that could

rather than the dying flowers, no matter how many there are or how beautiful they are. now, as so many historians david among them leading the charge, we see that we have an insistent new narrative of american culture postwar. while we know that usually there are two sides to every story when you see a monument such as this -- in addition to the cornerstones and inscriptions at the vicksburg cemetery -- there are no bipartisan accommodations here. intervention would have to move on. the promise of restored union begins to rise in the five

italicized lines of poetry etched. we can not once they chain. here is the lifeless claim. whether unknown or no to fame their cause and country still the same. the pride. but not quite. have we reached a place of unity here? in this confederate space. in this space so besieged. no. literally, a lengthydash sits like a bridge in error. the poet here states they died and they were degrade. -- more of the gray. as if the wearing comes after death. as of dying was a social event that required appropriate dress. the symbolic drape of the cause.

after death. a gesture that in the jester of epithets that we discussed yesterday evening, that tragic romance would beg a question. it's been. upon that dash, that a lost cause premise is born again, and the rights to exclusive ground and forever etched in stone. there's is another poem on that monument. another set of lines. that's the monument to the confederate dead. it goes on. if the poem signed by a woman named madge, who becomes alert is identified as a misconduct. it is fascinating. i have not been able to find in full. it is across all the literature of the time. anyways, here we have this. this is an

this is a next served of what is on the memorial. " that's on the memorial penn but then we get to moments like this where this part, or as paul harvey would say, the rest of the story appears. it keeps going. fascinating giving the race than mx. -- race dynamics.

in 1877, the vicksburg daily partial land it was not only granted on the graves of the corrupt ones who live in our silent today but published in every paper in the country. but this same stanza was referring to the fate of the vanquished. it's melancholy. what does it mean to be vanquished? it means to be absolutely, completely, entirely defeated. it is not simply having surrendered or agreed to a peace. it is the absolute bottom of

defeat. this bottom, wage contains the gradient goes on to think about the world postwar, this unhappy land it is a beautiful sentiment, truly christian. people are looking for. "the new york times" has pictures of it. the a lower of declaration day had to do with the soft feminine touch, the deposit of hours, the blooms and things upon the earth. declarations were exactly that, wholly temporal. it should not surprise us, as they sectionalism intensified his the flowery tributes of the

ladies would give way to more. his accounts of the efforts to memorialize our totally absorbing. he tells us of a mayday when charles tony and -- charlestoni ans reinterred the dead. on the third of june, the first day of the first president of

the confederacy, jefferson davis. or even may 10, the anniversary of the death of stonewall jackson. this is a declaration day that does not stop. perhaps the most compelling history that david white lays out for us is the furious efforts across the south to move from the ephemeral, the laying of flowers, to the permanent more white authored memorials of stone pyramids, statues of confederate leaders. the parade that associated themselves with a founding and the installation of them could hardly remain separate. it is in that moment that we see so many african-american veterans, members of the united states colored troops deemed not only a bothersome detail in terms of crowd control but "any

evidence of african-american soldiers were to force whites to show their consequence." white southerners insisted that any hint of african-american presence would be an indignity to the memory of man like stonewall jackson. "as an insult to the confederacy." it's no surprise that were david and other historians have documented as they lost cause platform, that in this white and sphere, neither blue nor black had any place, precisely because there presence in p did the southern call to overthrow federally imposed reconstruction. it's worth noting there is a moment -- we can go on and on.

david's talk inspired me last night. i did not sleep. i understand why people become civil war historians. it just keeps going. there is this moment in arlington. so many people go to arlington. there is this massive appearance for the commemoration of the war. barely a day or two later, there is this event to mark the passage of the preliminary draft of the proclamation and there a few hundred people. and a few visitors stumble in and are not sure why they are there. and yet there is this moment in arlington cemetery where some and he people do not know that there is an entire section of arlington pushed off behind in section 27 dedicated to african-americans. there is a cemetery where they entered -- they interred people

who were part of the contraband camps. there was a thriving community schools, businesses, churches. they were making their way out of no way, despite what you read in the paper. must stop this government handout, the echoes, they have not changed. but when you go to the reality of it, there are these graves. on memorial day, the colored troops not able to celebrate in the grand unknown soldier, you find -- "while services were for the tomb of the unknown, a whole set of these gentlemen -- a large number of colored persons and proceed to the cemetery of the colored soldiers to the north of the mansion,"

which is the arlington house where lee was resided and was taken from him. but you go to the north of the mansion. this is the part that should stun us and yet not. "on arriving there, they found no stand erected no torture or speaker selected. not a single flag placed on high. not even a paper bag at the headboard of these loyal but ignored dead. not even a drop of water to quench the hearst of the humble patriots after their -- and there beautifully decorated grandstand above to this barren and neglected spot below. by two and a half :00 p.m., messengers were not dispatched to the office of the day and they in turn returned with half a dozen perhaps rosettes in a basket of flour leaves. deep was the indignation and disappointment of the people.

and then there was a gathering and it was resolved that the colored citizens of the district of columbia was going to change this. so in the interest of time, i want to take us to boston. we are going to pause for just a minute. so at the unveiling of the first significant monument to a confederate hero, according to david, "there is a standing statue of stonewall jackson, and upon its installation in 1875 nearly 15,000 people gathered for an unprecedented parade and ceremony that included at major

intersections, veterans, ladies memorial, associations and the indefatigable kkk, and a reenactment achieved by the placing of two confederate soldiers in their tattered old confederate garments on pedestals in front of each tower. they leaned upon reverse muskets. many people could not believe that they were living individuals. at this moment, here is the statue. there are many descriptions of this. the one i want to share with you describes this particular statue by a recent blogger. in very hushed stage directions, he writes "stall walls right hand rests on his hip the sword

faces downward, the tip resting on the uppermost of three stacked a mason boxlocks. stonewall could almost be a wizard leaning on his staff. his coat is slung over the crook of his elbow. it is for stonewall an unguarded moment. he looks satisfied, as if he knows my work here is done." as a virginia prepared to receive this jackson statue, many had to describe why it meant so much. and the governor the clearing " it revives no animosities of the past.

it woos the sensibilities of no-bid man to honor and revere the memory jackson. all the earth knows the earth covers the ashes of a patriot and a hero whose greatness shed luster on the age in which she lived. his example belonged to mankind and indeed his virtues will be cherished -- will be cherished by all the coming generations of the great american republic. his deeds and virtues will be cherished -- declaration or command? yet while southern cities like richmond are crafting nonnegotiable narratives of protection for unfettered generals and soldiers, northern cities like boston word generating chaotic accounts of that same history of war and principle. while stonewall jackson was exuding satisfaction from his perch in richmond, in boston, a young woman of color, probably in hopkins, while confronting the overwhelming wave of unsettled history and her work had yet to begin. she was born free in portland,

maine, and she became -- she was many things, journalist, playwright the first african-american woman to write detective fiction, to write and starting her own play. and she wrote a play about slavery. it was called "the killer sam or the underground railroad" and it had many variations of that title. but hopkins was descended from the pile family of boston, first-generation free. their father caesar had been kidnapped as a young boy, brought to new hampshire brought into the french and indian war. he was taken into bondage in canada after the massacre.

so she is born in portland and comes into her own as a concert singer and a talented vocalist. then she turns her hand to playwriting. for cop -- hopkins, there is this moment where she has this incredible career possibility. boston 1870's and 1880's, in the summertime, they are flocking to places like oakland gardens. it is a former stay in roxbury, gorgeous and huge. 15 years after the end of the civil war, the new manager of the oakland gardens, a man named charles hakes, wants to showcase hopkins's play which is now called "escape from slavery." it is an energetic and sophisticated way. but he wants to complement that drama with one of his own. a resurrection -- there she is -- he wanted to complement that

drama with one of his own, a resurrection of slavery for modern audiences. he wanted to do it in a city where he himself, some years earlier, just five had organized a lucrative black minstrelsy concert. so now here he is, hakes envisioning panoramas of antebellum southern life that would provide new england's -- this is 15 years now after the world -- a true and living picture of the day of slavery. and he was incorporating hopkins who did not want to reenact a that. she was offended for people for whom freedom was hard-won and hard cap. he wanted to incur rate best to incorporate her into this. it included presentations of "the planters home, the mounted overseers, the slave that worked in the field, the bloodhounds."

there was no camel. but this was to be no short or idle adventure. it quickly became a fixture in boston summer theater. in 1882, audiences could sit and watch "cotton culture and plantation pastime by watching genuine negro speaking real con in a vast con field." -- vast cotton field." what does well in hopkins, an aspiring -- what does elaine hopkins, an aspiring writer, make of this world that she is try to make a way for herself? she managed it.

in the absence of extant documents that might shed light on the contract arranged by hopkins and hicks, it is not possible to be sure of how fully aware she was of his plan. she decided with her family, with whom she often performed, that's their had to be -- that there had to be an antidote. while hicks had the real negroes picking the genuine con, hopkins and her family establish the troubadour. this is that moment of the did we win/did we lose, the blue and the gray, the slaves in the free. hopkins goes for the middle. at the moment, colored troubadours would sing high choral songs that have no dialect and them, have everything to do with god with elegance and sophistication. so what do we do with this type of reenactment, this effort to

both three animate and sustain a southern pre-civil war across the mason-dixon line in boston? the commercialization of antebellum southern bondage seemed to veer towards much more insidious justification of continued segregation. slavery was alive and well, wasn't not? i saw it last summer. white privilege, the ability to watch, to behold. all of these pooled together to create and sustain the sought -- divisive intellectual and moral superiority. the open gardens stressed its ability to provide historical authenticity, truth to provide northern audiences with access to southern reality. and to offer such cultural truths, the gardens stage had to

be imagined as a neutral space one in permeable to northern and southern historical realities to the outcome, to the end of that war. at the oakland garden, why perspectives were privilege and rendered a historical. audiences were no way bound by social conscience where the demonstrated needs and social realities of their post-civil war age. it's worth noting that after elaine hopkins and her family survived charles takes and the oakland garden, they go on to reclaim the play, separate it from the specter of the genuine southern plantation not far from boston. and they begin to pass the play as benefit drama for the african-american union veterans.

and throughout small towns of new england, they move. they offer the play. they cast it now as a veterans play. and it is cast as something that is now able to raise funds for and end that narrative of slavery. because the plot of the plays that a young man falls in love with a beautiful young woman who is married casually to an overseer who is clearly an -- clearly objectionable. they decide to run. they cannot marry because this young woman feels that, as long as the southland holder to a slave marriage to which she did not consent to. you have the long arm of the southland reaching. a lawyer comes and says, i realize now i have to release you from that thing of the past. it is only at that point that the play can end and all can be

well. the history of what it means to decorate sam graves and not all -- some graves and not all, this brings us to a conversation about what it means to perform history, to call up the past, to depict slavery and post-civil war america in the 19th century or in the 21st. this new england version of history also reveals the high-stakes of identity politics, the politics nation of self -- the politics nation -- the politicization of the self. the power here of effective artistry and expression lies in the challenges of racial

stereotypes even after the war. for us it lies in a persistent effort to locate of the moments, the context in which these identities of oath race and historic identities are publicized racialized, and when bodies are raised and depicted and deployed. the act of looking back, one of the most evocative gestures possible. it is an inherently orphic move, one where you lose the one you love because you love her so. you look back on the threshold of eternity with the one you love. it also recalls that biblical disobedience by a still-nameless wife of lot, for that home, and that she had a home in sodom and

gomorrah, twin cities of chaos. it carries a stunning a nonnegotiable threat of yet another loss of a cherished place of a romance undone, of a claim on rattled -- claim unraveled. incoming to conversations about the civil war especially in the year of major anniversaries, we find ourselves in a non-canny and very rich position -- and uncanny and very rich position of looking through come around and underneath. for to know to get the civil war years is to travel across uneven land, to tread on oh so many unmarked graves, and to look at what has risen from great national grief, hypocrisies, ideals, and shame. so civility is a route to restoration or to reconstruction. it does not benefit from polite, apolitical or nervous accommodations of another

person's right to all pain and two accounts of all chama to narratives of loss. i am not a fan of the hardly civil retort. but there may be something to that logic. could it be that our conversations about a post-racial america where blackness is not supposed to count and mixed-race neither given that we have a president his mother is from kansas. is it that our conversations from this america, where we witness the death of young america -- young african-american men by the hand of ambitious never watchman or off-duty officers, we hear the efforts ofto disenfranchise voters . could it be something as awful as a condition [indiscernible] a state of aiding that simple he detaches from common sense, from

history, from loss, that separates the now from then and whistles dixie? visibility and access where the dance cards of the postwar moment. so many of those moments in the post bella made to around questions of who could he seen who should not the mist, who insisted they be seen, who'd secured the siteght and the sites of others. i want to close with a vermont moment.

first chapter of the novel they make their way back. "at one point, the girls said to him -- they have been watching us all the way. all they got was the right to look. maybe. no may be about it. they turned off the road less than a mile from the randolph village to claim the half-mile of gravel track to the hill farm where only his mother and young sister waited. his father kicked in the head by the old amre two years before -- the old mare two years before. the farm wife was in the side yard with her hands full and her mouth agape with pins and was unable to way with greetings but just watch them pass by.

the neighbor boy grown war hardened and the green knight african girl so lovely in the african -- in the fall sunshine. -- and the green eyes of the african girl so lovely in the fall sunshine. the woman in red is saying you are over there and i'm over here and i'm going to stay right here unless you invite me otherwise. as they continued up the hill norman thought he heard the spatter of clothespins onto the ground behind them. as we approach 2015, as we complete the commemorations of the world -- the war we are left to contemplate who we watch on that journey. we have a duty to contemplate our time as a still and always

postbellum world that began several times since 1865, and about the absolutely difficult world -- work of reconstruction that was validated in some anemic and places. the civil war shapes our civic and cultural life because it gives us a chance to us repeatedly and with intention what might we relearn about america? what about american culture in the aftermath of the civil war must we retell? what do we not yet memorialize in the events about that work him about that war between the states, the one that polarized so many and so much that cause even more attention to how difficult the continues to be to imagine this nation, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all? so it is important, if not vital and truly life necessary and sustaining, for us to ask not just what happened there or here

, but who have we not yet seen in the histories of these american places? what must we resurrect from the long patient ground beneath our feet? so i would like to close with the words of a general. one who blasted his way through the south all the while a humanist and all the while a warrior. "think, act, take your part and see that some power is race in america that can stay the hand of strife, and subs to the rule or justice and mercy for that of force, violence and destruction." thank you. [applause]

thank you. >> questions? collects think is a much for the presentation. in 2008, obama's last stop on his campaign the evening before the election was actually in manassas.

i was there with 100,000 other people. it was 11:30 at night. it was misty, kind of rainy. i think his grandmother had died that morning. it was a somber town. at the same time, people were very excited. it is interesting to me that the swing county of a swing state in 2008 was prince william county ad manassas was a place obama had visited many times. and also the hope, the iconic hope they came from the artist based in charleston. so all of these civil war connections. for me, the and print of the civil war culturally is not just something that we can sort of interpret, but was very visceral and real.

i don't know if there is something in that that you would like to respond to. >> thank you. we listened last night and there were great questions about place and about obama and about the ways in which he has and has not addressed matters of race. as i was listening to you and you were talking about manassas, i'm thinking too about what we have yet to see. how does one -- you know, there are some battlefields into which we can go. i think your point is spot on with the idea that the swing state, in that moment, it is there. victory will be hard-won and you will in a way oswe us.

the contract in negotiation is profound. last night, i thought how do we memorialize massacre? how do we get a statue to that? i thought, because i had not yet gone to this place, let me look. canon's. green space. this is a massacre of union troops who were outnumbered 2500-50 or 60 or 100, right? led by nathan bedford forrest, after whom high schools are named in this great country. how do you cast of that massacre of surrendered lack soldiers -- black soldiers into bronze? i still think there is this tension in terms of what will it take to win?

i think that is the question that i take out of your comment. what will it take to win? and what is it that we have to see an order to get that qualified win? because it does not sweep the nation and it is that moment of word is a come from the holden now forever in the record? so it is a very fraught -- even in the moments when he was begged not to lay a wreath to commemorate the confederate dead, the criticisms that come from that, there is still so much territory that we have not yet claimed. because we have not walked it honestly. it's the unspeakable war. so it's not just because, to quote a great southern politician -- it's not just

because he's black, not just because it was that war. they war is with us and we have not reclaimed all those battlefield and all those tragedies and all those massacres. anne hathaway looked at dishonor -- and have we looked at dishonor? how do we do that? once we do that, we have to look at the ugly, the true, the full breath of human capability and inclination. >> anymore questions? >> thank you. one of the things it seems south africa has gotten ride although it is still a very rocky road, is the concept of truth and reconciliation. and one is seen as very essential as the other. it's clear that the truth does

not get told at the end of the civil war. are you aware of their having been any cries for that? i'm thinking of the abolitionists who were so militant about freeing slaves. but where were they at the wake of the war when the black soldiers were not allowed to march with the grand army of the republican people worse ashley being re-enslaved -- work essentially being rinse late? >> your question is a splendid wine and a storied one. that is the next congress -- the next conference we need to have, right? postwar. truth and reconciliation. i had a chance to talk with naomi tutu whose father was so essential to that process of truth and reconciliation and postapartheid, post separate spheres. one of the things i came away with was which truths and which

reconciliation for whom? again, it is that gorgeous, real expensive contract, right? i will confess my sins and you will forgive me and we will move on. but what happens if we actually dwell in the horror of the truth? what happens if it is just the truth commission? reconciliation requires so much for whom that truth is a nightmare that ellison cannot wake up from and that so many people cannot wake up from. truth and reconciliation, i don't mean to appear to be cynical at all, but they moved to contract, truth and reconciliation, let's linger in that awful truth and let's sit with the wickedness and let's sit with the hate. and then let us decide on what terms we might be reconciled. because it is in that moment

that you truly get political power. it is in that moment you have a shot at democracy at a just and civil society. but if you know, and according to naomi, there were moments when people who were tortured, confronted by the person who had done it, and in that exchange new they were not going to have the time to recover from having relived now in the presence of their torturer they were not going to have time to truly come to terms. but in spirit of the great nation, the collective goods the big picture, yes. who are we robbing? it is not just the walking wounded forever. it's that individual who now thinks he has confessed his sins and believes he can go sin no more. so it's about dwelling. i would say your question makes me think, too, about william lloyd garrison for whom the march to the civil war and the end of the war was essential. that was his mission.

and the moment that the war concluded and that, yes, slavery is finished, that version of it, he stopped the person's that suppresses. he -- he stopped the presses. he was a man in contract with himself. garrison took us to that place of the truth is here now. and maybe he recognized what we in some ways can't afford to if we are to press on. that is, we have come this distance and there is so much farther to go. someone else will now have to carry that.

it could have killed him in so many ways. however, that moment of truth and reconciliation, the abolitionist, i think the term comes to the local so you see the declaration day for so many of the union troops of color for the men of the 54th, the 55th massachusetts, and various in between gathering together in the african-american grand army of the republic and marking their celebration, taking the streets in their full dress regalia and telling the story, making themselves visible. but in some ways, too, i think your question goes to the truth and reconciliation reflects. which is the nation can't afford to dwell in the truth. reconciliation is the veil for democracy moving on,

progress. it is a sobering place to be. thank you. [applause] >> you are watching american history tv, 48 hours of programming on american history every weekend on c-span 3. follow us on twitter. for information of upcoming programs and for the latest on history news heard. the friedman's bank was created