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A vibrant purple-and-red sunset did little to detract the audience’s attention from the outdoor movie screen as Henry Louis Gates Jr. presented his debut two-part film “Reconstruction: America After the Civil War.” The series premiered in April on PBS.
At the Beach Plum Inn in Menemsha, Gates and 60 dinner guests enjoyed a three-course meal, then gathered on the sloping lawn to see the screening of a highlight reel put on by the Martha’s Vineyard Film Festival (MVFF).
Gates’ four-hour series unpacks the transformative years of Reconstruction following the Civil War, when millions of freed slaves sought their rightful place as equals among whites. The film also explores in depth the period of racist backlash by former Confederates (referred to as the Redemption era), and the rise of Jim Crow segregation.
Gates started the presentation by describing Reconstruction and what it meant for the progression of African American civil liberties in the U.S. “Reconstruction was the period immediately following the Civil War, when black people experienced more freedom and enjoyed more rights than ever before in American history,” Gates said. “It was the embodiment of Lincoln’s new birth of freedom.”
He said many schools in America don’t teach the history of Reconstruction, leading many students to wonder, “If Lincoln freed the slaves, why do we need a civil rights movement?”
In order to understand the catalyst for the civil rights movement, Gates said one must understand the racist rollback that occurred when freed slaves’ rights were again being suppressed.
“How could black men be given a vote in the South in 1867, then be systematically deprived of that vote 20 years later by state constitutional conventions all throughout the South?” he asked.
He quoted civil rights activist and historian W.E.B. Du Bois, who said, “Under Reconstruction, the slave went free, stood a brief moment in the sun, then moved back again toward slavery.”
During Reconstruction and the rollback period to follow, Gates said, racist propaganda and vitriol spread through news publications, magazines, popular culture, and schools in an attempt to suppress the rights of African Americans.
He quoted a speech from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. saying that the deliberate disinformation attempted to prove to whites that “freedom was dangerous in the hands of inferior beings.”
“One generation after another of Americans were assiduously taught these falsehoods, and the collective mind of America became poisoned with racism and stained with myths,” Gates quoted.
Understanding Reconstruction and its rollback, Gates said, is pivotal to understanding the history of race relations in America, “particularly, as you’ll see, race relations in the United States today.”
Gates told a story of when Chris Rock was a guest on his PBS show “Finding Your Roots,” where he explores celebrities’ historical pasts through research and genetics.
He uncovered the fact that Rock’s great-great-grandfather was elected to the South Carolina legislature as a representative in 1872.
“He had no idea, and in fact, he broke down and cried,” Gates said. “He broke down and cried because when he was 12 he told his mother he wanted to grow up to be a politician, and his mother said, ‘Black boys can’t grow up to be politicians.’”
He said the period of Reconstruction is little known and, for many decades, was widely misunderstood. “Reconstruction was the first attempt in the history of our country to establish an interracial democracy,” Gates said.
The issues central to Reconstruction, according to Gates, are central in today’s fight for equality.
“Just turn on CNN when you go home tonight,” Gates said. “Those issues continue to roil our society and politics today, making an understanding of the historical precedence of Reconstruction even more urgent, even more vital.”
He told the audience if there is one thing he wants viewers to glean from the film, it’s that “achievements and rights thought permanent can be overturned, and rights can never be taken for granted.”