Reconstruction And The New South
Sandra Michelli
HIS 125
June 23, 2013
Paul Sunderman

Reconstruction and The New South

1. Columbian historian Eric Foner (1983) quotes W. E. B. DuBois in calling Reconstruction a “splendid failure (p. 16).” After studying the events of the late 19th century, defend whether or not you agree with his position. What are the long-term implication?

“A Splendid Failure”, a statement made by the African American Historian. W.E.B. Du Bois has been used to describe what some see as the best way to describe the results of the Reconstruction Era. So the question one has to ask is if this remark is actually true. Was Reconstruction a 100% failure or where there some success that came out of this time period in American History? I would say that it was neither, that in fact there were some success and there were some failures.
The best way to describe my point is to use what the Military calls and After Action Report and see what these success and failures were. In looking at success of the Radical Reconstruction period the first one that stands out is in fact some say the reason the United States split and ended up in the bloody Civil War. That being the fact that Slavery was abolished. It was now once and for all illegal for a person to own another person as property. Schools for blacks were being created that had not existed before. Schools such as Salem University which was founded in Mississippi in 1872 would not have existed had access to education not been possible. Finally, services and facilities that had not existed before the war, in fact now existed. The quality and in most case the sanitary conditions that Whites enjoyed were none existent for Blacks and would remain that way until late into the next century, they did in fact exists.
On the other hand, promises that were made by the Radical Republicans and