Because I, too, “learned” that African Americans were the unsolved
problem of Reconstruction, reading Gunnar Myrdal’s An American Dilemma
was an eye-opening experience for me. Myrdal introduced his 1944 book by
describing the change in viewpoint he was forced to make as he conducted his
research.
When the present investigator started his inquiry, the
preconception was that it had to be focused on the Negro
people.... But as he proceeded in his studies into the Negro
problem, it became increasingly evident that little, if anything,
could be scientifically explained in terms of the peculiarities of
the Negroes themselves.... The Negro problem is
predominantly a white... problem.^69
This is precisely the understanding many nonblacks still need to achieve. It
goes against our culture. As one college student said to me, “You’ll never
believe all the stuff I learned in high school about Reconstruction—like, it
wasn’t so bad, it set up school systems. Then I saw Gone With the Wind and
learned the truth about Reconstruction!”What is identified as the problem
determines the frame of rhetoric and solutions sought. Myrdal’s insight, to
focus on whites, is critical to understanding Reconstruction. Textbooks still fail
to counter the Confederate myth of Reconstruction, so well portrayed in Gone
With the Wind, with an analysis that has equal power.
Focusing on white racism is even more central to understanding the period
Rayford Logan called “the nadir of American race relations”: the years
between 1890 and 1940 when African Americans were put back into second-
class citizenship.^70 During this time white Americans, North and South, joined
hands to restrict black civil and economic rights. Unfortunately, most
Americans do not even know the term, and not one of the textbooks I examined
used it. Instead, they break the period into various eras, most of them
inaccurate as well as inconsequential, such as Gay Nineties or Roaring
Twenties. During the Gay Nineties, for example, the United States suffered its
second-worst depression ever, as well as the Pullman and Homestead strikes
and other major labor disputes. Thus “Gay Nineties” leads logically to the
query, “Gay for whom?”
Although none uses the term, most textbooks do provide some twigs about
the nadir, while failing to provide an overview of the forest. The finest overall