Slavery Was Cause of Civil War SMALL
Civil War and Reconstruction

We Fought the Civil War to Preserve Slavery, Confederate Leaders Proclaimed

The Confederate VP Stephens proclaimed:
“Our new government’s foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”

Stephens continues, “Our confederacy is founded upon principles in strict conformity with these laws” establishing slavery. “This stone which was rejected by the first builders ‘is become the chief of the corner,’ the real ‘corner-stone,’ in our new edifice.” This is religious imagery, as Christ was proclaimed as the corner-stone of Christianity.

Furthermore, the Confederate VP Stephens proclaimed that the new Confederate “Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution, African slavery as it exists among us, and the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization.” […]

Civil Rights

Booker T Washington, Later Autobiography, My Larger Education

When Booker T Washington first started Tuskegee Institute, he immediately had to raise funds from the white businessmen of Macon County. He explains his pitch, “the best way to influence the Southern white man in our community, I have found, is to convince him that you are of value to that community. For example, if you are a teacher, the best way to get the influence of your white neighbors is to convince them that you are teaching something that will make your students” acquire skills that “adds something of value to the community.” I showed them that “the presence of Tuskegee Institute meant better farms and gardens, good housekeeping, good schools, and law and order.” […]

Summary Three Generations Black Leaders
Civil Rights

Three Generations of Leading Black Leaders: Frederick Douglass, Booker T Washington, and WEB Du Bois

Who do we consider to be the leaders of the first three generations of black leaders? Frederick Douglass, first generation black leader, abolitionist writer and orator, who was born a slave and escaped to freedom; Booker T Washington, educator, second generation black leader, who was born a slave, was freed when the Civil War ended; and WEB Du Bois, third generation black leader, civil rights activist, author and scholar, who was born free in Massachusetts after the Civil War, chose to attend college in the Deep South, and was co-founder of the NAACP. […]

Civil War and Reconstruction

Why Were Union Soldiers in the Civil War Willing to Fight to Preserve the Union?

Professor Gallagher opens his book on the Union War, “The loyal American citizenry fought a war that also killed slavery. In a conflict that stretched across four years and claimed more than 800,000 US casualties, the nation experienced huge swings of civilian and military morale before crushing Confederate resistance. Union always remained the paramount goal, a fact clearly expressed by Abraham Lincoln in speeches and other statements designed to garner the widest popular support for the war effort.” […]

Civil Rights

History of History of WEB Dubois’ Black Reconstruction, Challenging Lost Cause Myth and Dunning School

The established dogma was that the Reconstruction Era following the Civil War was a dark period in American history, where black rule bred corruption and unwanted federal interference in the governments of the Deep South. WEB Du Bois counters by claiming that the Jim Crow Redemptionist Era following Reconstruction was the dark era when blacks lost the right to vote and any semblance of due process and fair play, that many blacks were, in effect, re-enslaved in a more brutal segregationist society, and that the Reconstruction was a time of greater democracy where the civil rights and liberties of all races and classes were respected. […]

Civil Rights

Was the Rough Rider President Theodore Roosevelt a Proponent of Civil Rights?

Theodore Roosevelt was not a man bound by class, which can be seen in the composition of the Rough Rider volunteer regiment unit he organized to fight in the Spanish American War. The newspaper publicity hyping his heroic charge leading his Rough Rider regiment up San Juan Hill made him a household name, eventually propelling him to the Presidency.
Roosevelt, like his distant cousin Franklin, was a member of the patrician class, which meant that, of course, he attended Harvard University. After serving in the New York State Legislature, Roosevelt was devastated when both his beautiful young wife Alice and his mother passed away on the same day, just two days after the birth of his daughter, also named Alice. For solace, he purchased a cattle ranch in North Dakota, developing many friendships among the rough riding cowboys in this western state. His rough rider recruits were an unlikely mix of wealthy blue-blooded aristocrats and rough and ready cowboys from the Badlands.
Roosevelt’s Rough Riders were not the only regiment charging up San Juan Hill, history books often do not mention the role of the colored regiment Buffalo soldiers in the Spanish-American War. During the war Roosevelt was chided for fraternizing with the enlisted men, this criticism makes more sense if he fraternized with both his Rough Riders and the Buffalo soldiers, which have an interesting history of their own. […]

Civil Rights

Was WEB Du Bois a Communist? The Later Years of WEB Du Bois

Was WEB Du Bois a communist? The answer is YES: When he turned 93, he joined and paid his dues to the CPUSA, Communist Party. Most people are born in the first chapters of their autobiography; but no, WEB Du Bois, being ever the contrarian, chooses to extol the virtues of communism in the opening chapters. Personally, I am quite angry with him, why did he do that? It is political poison for a black leader to announce he is a communist, and now I must explain it. We will reflect on his growing embrace of communism over the course of his life. […]

Civil Rights

WEB Du Bois and the NAACP, Continuing the Fight For Civil Rights

In our continuing series of blogs and videos on WEB Du Bois, we will now reflect on these questions, among others:
What role did he play in making the NAACP the leading black activist organization?
How did he increase awareness of civil rights issues among Americans?
What were the tensions between him and the NAACP?
When studying the life and career of WEB Du Bois, we can ask ourselves another key question:
Why was he such a contrarian? […]

Civil Rights

Tensions Between WEB Du Bois and Booker T Washington, Accommodation or Activism?

As WEB Du Bois, our contrarian activist leader, rose in prominence in the black civil rights movement, he came into conflict with the accommodationist Booker T Washington, founder of Tuskegee Institute. While Booker T Washington always encouraged blacks be subservient and work hard and save their pennies so that someday their lives will improve, WEB Du Bois demanded dignity, civil rights, and real economic opportunity for blacks. […]

Civil Rights

Autobiography of WEB Du Bois: His Youth and School Years

To understand WEB Du Bois, you must first know that he was truly an intellectual, you could almost say that he was incapable of pouring out his feelings; rather, he can instead deliver a thirty-minute soliloquy of his feelings, displaying little emotion. Indeed, this is how WEB Dubois describes his autobiography: “This book is the Soliloquy of an old man on what he dreams his life has been as he sees it slowly drifting away; and what he would like others to believe.” […]