prof. brundage: i will speak about -- prof. gannon: i will speak about what i studied, the grand army of the republic being the largest veterans organization. one of the most important things i found was the role of the african-american host. just like av -- african-american post. just like a vw post. i found meeting minutes of an african-american post where they wrote exactly that that was their purpose, to remind people of what has happened in the civil war. they were very direct about it. what they did is they would participate in memorial day. july 4, large parades, any kind of event possible. they would name their posts after great heroes, whether they were white like robertshaw or a lesser-known person like joel bend. they would have lectures. they saw themselves of living reminders that they had fought in a war for their own freedom. it was a twofold thing. what i found surprising was that they were the center of the community idea. they had women's groups associated with them or part of a larger organization called wome

prof. brundage: well, that's -- thank you for that question. [laughter] prof. varon: do you mean that sincerely? prof. brundage: yes and no. i almost don't know where to begin with that, except to say that dubois grew up in a different place, literally and metaphorically then did booker t. washington. dubois'l life as a marvelous line where he says booker t. washington had known the crack of the whip and dubois had not. this is a fundamental difference between the two men. i think the most important thing to keep in mind is this goes back to something that gary mentioned earlier. really until the 1930's, the overwhelming majority of african-americans in the 1930's lived in the south. when booker t. washington was head of the testing he -- tusk eegee institute, he had to take into account the reality of alabama. he was running a state institution, although he had privatized it. he had to navigate in a different context then did dubois, who was for the most part an obscure academic -- i say obscure for most americans -- until he became affiliated with the crisis

prof. brundage: for white southerners, 1865 was a bitter pill to take. i have been telling themselves that it was a slave holders republican a providential mission. white southerners pivoted, particularly of certain denominations, episcopalians and presbyterians went all in on this great they pivoted and concluded that somehow they were god's chosen people. and god was chastening them, was punishing them for their hubris. their punishment still meant that he loved them beyond all others.

prof. brundage: this speaks to the complexity of the situation for african-americans. i think african-americans had a range of opinions about what the concept of citizenship should be. but they still, they were close to having a general consensus about what it would be. to translate that into a practical, lived reality of citizenship was an entirely different matter. if you just take the issue of property. african-americans come out of slavery with some property. sometimes. small amounts of personal property, perhaps. they don't have the types of property that are the foundation to an independent livelihood. it's one thing to say now you can own property. but if you start out for the point of having no property whenever, how does one exercise that right in any meaningful way? all of those questions are on the table in 1865, and have to be resolved not just in the abstract someday in the future. they knew to be resolved immediately. within the next week, three weeks, month, year. if to plant crops, you have to harvest them. the nitty-gritty of freedom and citizenship be