doing in slavery!^64 Similarly, according to Triumph of the American Nation,
Reconstruction “meant solving the problem of bringing black Americans into
the mainstream of national life.” Triumph supplied an instructive example of
the myth of lazy, helpless black folk: “When white planters abandoned their
plantations on islands off the coast of South Carolina, black people there were
left helpless and destitute.” In reality, these black people enlisted in Union
armies, operated the plantations themselves, and made raids into the interior to
free slaves on mainland plantations.
This illustration of armed whites raiding a black neighborhood in Memphis,
Tennessee, in the 1866 riot, exemplifies white-black violence during and after
Reconstruction. Forty African Americans died in this riot; whites burned down
every black school and church in the city.
Today’s textbooks show African Americans striving to better themselves.
But authors still soft-pedal the key problem during Reconstruction, white vio-
lence. The figures are astounding. The victors of the Civil War executed but