Redeemers Us History

Redeemers: US History's Controversial Legacy

The term "Redeemers" evokes strong reactions. For some, it whispers of restoration and order; for others, it screams of oppression and violence. This post delves deep into the complex history of the Redeemers in post-Reconstruction America, examining their rise to power, their policies, and their enduring legacy. We'll unpack the myths and realities, explore their impact on various segments of society, and analyze their lasting effects on American politics and social structures. Prepare to confront a challenging period in American history, one that requires a nuanced understanding to truly grasp its complexities.

The Rise of the Redeemers: A Power Grab in the Shadow of Reconstruction

Following the Civil War and the tumultuous period of Reconstruction, the South faced a profound transformation. The defeat of the Confederacy and the abolition of slavery shattered the existing social and political order. Reconstruction, while aiming for racial equality and integration, faced significant resistance. This resistance coalesced into a movement known as the Redeemers. Composed largely of pre-war elites – planters, merchants, and lawyers – the Redeemers presented themselves as saviors of the South, promising to restore the region's economy and its traditional social hierarchy.

Their campaign, however, was far from altruistic. They used intimidation, violence, and voter suppression tactics – including the rise of paramilitary groups like the Ku Klux Klan – to disenfranchise Black voters and regain control of Southern state governments. They skillfully exploited racial prejudices and anxieties among white Southerners, using inflammatory rhetoric to consolidate their power base. The narrative of the "Lost Cause" – a romanticized vision of the Confederacy as a noble fight for states' rights – played a crucial role in their propaganda efforts.

Redeemers' Policies: Economic Recovery or Systemic Oppression?

The Redeemers' economic policies focused on promoting industrial growth and attracting outside investment. While this led to some economic expansion, it often came at the expense of ordinary citizens, both Black and white. Sharecropping and tenant farming, systems that essentially trapped many Black families in cycles of debt and poverty, became increasingly prevalent. These systems, although not solely a creation of the Redeemers, were reinforced and exploited under their rule.

Furthermore, the Redeemers systematically dismantled the social programs and advancements achieved during Reconstruction. Educational opportunities for Black children were significantly curtailed, and efforts to provide land ownership for formerly enslaved people were effectively reversed. This led to a deepening of the racial inequalities that already existed, perpetuating a system of segregation and discrimination that would dominate the South for decades to come.

The Social Impact of Redeemer Rule: A Legacy of Inequality

The social impact of the Redeemers' rule was devastating, especially for African Americans. Jim Crow laws, which established a rigid system of racial segregation, were enacted and enforced with brutality. Black political participation was virtually eliminated through violence, intimidation, and restrictive voting laws like poll taxes and literacy tests. The hopes for racial equality fostered during Reconstruction were brutally crushed, setting the stage for decades of oppression and social injustice.

The effects, however, extended beyond the Black community. White farmers and laborers often found themselves exploited by the emerging industrial system, facing low wages and limited opportunities. The economic benefits of the Redeemers' policies were largely concentrated in the hands of the elite, widening the gap between the wealthy and the poor.

The Lasting Legacy of the Redeemers: A Shadow on American History

The legacy of the Redeemers continues to shape American society today. The patterns of racial inequality and political disenfranchisement that they established persisted for generations, influencing everything from voting rights struggles to the ongoing fight for social justice. Understanding their actions is crucial to comprehending the complexities of American race relations and the long-term impact of historical injustices. The myths surrounding the Redeemers, often presented in a romanticized light, must be challenged with a clear-eyed examination of the facts. Their rise to power serves as a stark reminder of the fragility of democracy and the constant need to safeguard against oppression and the erosion of civil rights.

Book Outline: "The Shadow of Redemption: The Rise and Fall of the Southern Redeemers"

Introduction:
Overview of Reconstruction and its failures.
Introduction to the Redeemers and their rise to power.
Thesis statement: The Redeemers' actions, while presented as restoring order, ultimately perpetuated systemic inequality and delayed true racial reconciliation in the South.

Chapter 1: The Seeds of Discontent:
Analysis of the political climate after the Civil War.
Examination of the economic hardship facing the South.
Emergence of racial tensions and the rise of white supremacist ideology.

Chapter 2: The Rise of the Redeemers:
Key figures and their motivations.
Political strategies and tactics employed by the Redeemers.
The role of violence and intimidation in consolidating power.

Chapter 3: Policies and Practices:
Economic policies and their impact on various social groups.
The implementation of Jim Crow laws and the disenfranchisement of Black voters.
The dismantling of Reconstruction-era social programs.

Chapter 4: Social and Cultural Impacts:
Long-term effects on race relations in the South.
The perpetuation of poverty and inequality.
The creation of a deeply segregated society.

Chapter 5: The Enduring Legacy:
The continued influence of Redeemer ideology on American politics.
The ongoing struggle for racial justice and equality.
Lessons learned from the history of the Redeemers.

Conclusion:
Restatement of the thesis and summary of key findings.
Reflection on the enduring significance of the Redeemers in shaping American history.
Call to action: The need for continued vigilance against oppression and inequality.

FAQs:

1. Who were the Redeemers in US history? The Redeemers were a coalition of white Southern Democrats who regained control of Southern state governments after Reconstruction.

2. What were the Redeemers' main goals? Their stated goal was to restore the South's economy and traditional social order after the Civil War, but their methods often involved suppressing Black rights and perpetuating racial inequality.

3. What methods did the Redeemers use to gain power? They used a combination of political maneuvering, intimidation, violence (often perpetrated by groups like the KKK), and voter suppression tactics to disenfranchise Black citizens.

4. What were the key policies of the Redeemer governments? Their policies included promoting industrial growth, dismantling Reconstruction-era social programs, and enacting Jim Crow laws to establish racial segregation.

5. What was the impact of Redeemer rule on African Americans? It resulted in widespread disenfranchisement, economic exploitation (through sharecropping and tenant farming), and the establishment of a system of legalized segregation and discrimination.

6. How did the Redeemers' actions impact the South's economy? While they fostered some industrial growth, the economic benefits were largely concentrated among the elite, leaving many white and Black farmers and laborers impoverished.

7. What is the "Lost Cause" mythology? It's a romanticized interpretation of the Confederacy that minimizes the role of slavery and portrays the Civil War as a noble fight for states' rights, frequently used by the Redeemers to justify their actions.

8. How does the legacy of the Redeemers continue to affect the US today? Their legacy includes the enduring patterns of racial inequality, political disenfranchisement, and the ongoing struggle for racial justice and equality.

9. What can we learn from studying the Redeemers? Studying the Redeemers provides crucial insights into the fragility of democracy, the dangers of unchecked power, and the importance of fighting against oppression and injustice.

Related Articles:

1. Reconstruction Era: A Comprehensive Overview: Examines the political, social, and economic changes during Reconstruction.
2. Jim Crow Laws: The Legal Foundation of Segregation: Details the legal framework that enforced racial segregation in the South.
3. The Ku Klux Klan: Terrorism and White Supremacy in the South: Explores the history and violence of this notorious white supremacist group.
4. Sharecropping and Tenant Farming: Cycles of Debt and Poverty: Analyzes the exploitative economic systems that trapped many Black families in poverty.
5. Black Codes: Restricting Freedom After Slavery: Explores the laws passed after the Civil War to limit the rights of newly freed African Americans.
6. The Civil Rights Movement: Fighting for Equality: Details the decades-long struggle for racial equality in the United States.
7. Voter Suppression Tactics: A History of Disenfranchisement: Examines various methods used throughout American history to deny voting rights to certain groups.
8. The Rise of Populism in the South: Explores the socio-political context of the populist movements of the late 19th century.
9. The Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court Case: The Legalization of "Separate but Equal": Discusses this landmark Supreme Court case that upheld racial segregation.


  redeemers us history: Rogues and Redeemers Gerard O'Neill, 2012 From the bestselling coauthor of Black Mass, a behind-the-scenes portrait of the Irish power brokers who forged and fractured twentieth-century Boston. Rogues and Redeemers tells the hidden story of Boston politics--the cold-blooded ward bosses, the smoke-filled rooms, the larger-than-life pols who became national figures: Honey Fitz, the crafty stage Irishman and grandfather to a president; the pugilistic Rascal King, Michael Curley; the hectored Kevin White who tried to hold the city together during the busing crisis; and Ray Flynn, the Southie charmer who was truly the last hurrah for Irish-American politics in the city. For almost a century, the Irish dominated Boston politics with their own unique, clannish brand of coercion and shaped its future for good and ill. Former Boston Globe investigative reporter Gerard O'Neill takes the reader through the entire journey from the famine ships arriving in Massachusetts Bay to the wresting of power away from the Brahmins of Beacon Hill to the Title I wars of attrition over housing to the rending of the city over busing to the Boston of today--which somehow through it all became a modern, revitalized city, albeit with a growing divide between the haves and have-nots. Sweeping in its history and intimate in its details, Rogues and Redeemers echoes all the great themes of The Power Broker and Common Ground and should take its place on that esteemed shelf as a classic, definitive epic of a city.
  redeemers us history: Rednecks, Redeemers, and Race Stephen Cresswell, 2021-01-15 A history of the paradoxical time when the state's technology advanced and race relations deteriorated
  redeemers us history: Wade Hampton Rod Andrew Jr., 2009-11-30 One of the South's most illustrious military leaders, Wade Hampton III was for a time the commander of all Lee's cavalry and at the end of the war was the highest-ranking Confederate cavalry officer. Yet for all Hampton's military victories, he also suffered devastating losses in his family and personal life. Rod Andrew's critical biography sheds light on his central role during Reconstruction as a conservative white leader, governor, U.S. senator, and Redeemer; his heroic image in the minds of white southerners; and his positions and apparent contradictions on race and the role of African Americans in the New South. Andrew also shows that Hampton's tragic past explains how he emerged in his own day as a larger-than-life symbol--of national reconciliation as well as southern defiance.
  redeemers us history: Redeemers Enrique Krauze, 2013-07-02 In Redeemers, acclaimed historian Enrique Krauze presents the major ideas that have formed the modern Latin American political mind during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries—and looks closely at how these ideas were expressed in the lives of influential revolutionaries, thinkers, poets, and novelists. Here are the Cuban José Martí; the Argentines Che Guevara and Evita Perón; political thinkers like Mexico’s José Vasconcelos; and the writers José Enrique Rodó, Mario Vargas Llosa, Octavio Paz, and Gabriel García Márquez. Redeemers also highlights Mexico’s Samuel Ruiz and Subcomandante Marcos, as well as Venezuela’s president Hugo Chávez, and their influence on contemporary Latin America. In his brilliant, deeply researched history, Enrique Krauze uses the range of these extraordinary lives to illuminate the struggle that has defined Latin American history: an ever-precarious balance between the ideal of democracy and the temptation of political messianism.
  redeemers us history: The Road to Redemption Michael Perman, 1984 During Reconstruction, an attempt was made in the South to return its politics to the two-party system that it had experienced during the Jacksonian era. This book is a study of that experiment in party formation. As such, it attempts to explain how this system operated, what brought about its collapse, and what took its place. After all, Reconstruction was not embarked upon solely to round out and settle the sectional conflict. Far more important was its purpose of establishing a new political order, even a new economic direction, for the South, and that is what this book is about. -- from Introduction.
  redeemers us history: Stony the Road Henry Louis Gates, Jr., 2019-04-02 “Stony the Road presents a bracing alternative to Trump-era white nationalism. . . . In our current politics we recognize African-American history—the spot under our country’s rug where the terrorism and injustices of white supremacy are habitually swept. Stony the Road lifts the rug. —Nell Irvin Painter, New York Times Book Review A profound new rendering of the struggle by African-Americans for equality after the Civil War and the violent counter-revolution that resubjugated them, by the bestselling author of The Black Church. The abolition of slavery in the aftermath of the Civil War is a familiar story, as is the civil rights revolution that transformed the nation after World War II. But the century in between remains a mystery: if emancipation sparked a new birth of freedom in Lincoln's America, why was it necessary to march in Martin Luther King, Jr.'s America? In this new book, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., one of our leading chroniclers of the African-American experience, seeks to answer that question in a history that moves from the Reconstruction Era to the nadir of the African-American experience under Jim Crow, through to World War I and the Harlem Renaissance. Through his close reading of the visual culture of this tragic era, Gates reveals the many faces of Jim Crow and how, together, they reinforced a stark color line between white and black Americans. Bringing a lifetime of wisdom to bear as a scholar, filmmaker, and public intellectual, Gates uncovers the roots of structural racism in our own time, while showing how African Americans after slavery combatted it by articulating a vision of a New Negro to force the nation to recognize their humanity and unique contributions to America as it hurtled toward the modern age. The story Gates tells begins with great hope, with the Emancipation Proclamation, Union victory, and the liberation of nearly 4 million enslaved African-Americans. Until 1877, the federal government, goaded by the activism of Frederick Douglass and many others, tried at various turns to sustain their new rights. But the terror unleashed by white paramilitary groups in the former Confederacy, combined with deteriorating economic conditions and a loss of Northern will, restored home rule to the South. The retreat from Reconstruction was followed by one of the most violent periods in our history, with thousands of black people murdered or lynched and many more afflicted by the degrading impositions of Jim Crow segregation. An essential tour through one of America's fundamental historical tragedies, Stony the Road is also a story of heroic resistance, as figures such as W. E. B. Du Bois and Ida B. Wells fought to create a counter-narrative, and culture, inside the lion's mouth. As sobering as this tale is, it also has within it the inspiration that comes with encountering the hopes our ancestors advanced against the longest odds.
  redeemers us history: Reconstruction Eric Foner, 2011-12-13 From the preeminent historian of Reconstruction (New York Times Book Review), a newly updated edition of the prize-winning classic work on the post-Civil War period which shaped modern America, with a new introduction from the author. Eric Foner's masterful treatment of one of the most complex periods of American history (New Republic) redefined how the post-Civil War period was viewed. Reconstruction chronicles the way in which Americans—black and white—responded to the unprecedented changes unleashed by the war and the end of slavery. It addresses the ways in which the emancipated slaves' quest for economic autonomy and equal citizenship shaped the political agenda of Reconstruction; the remodeling of Southern society and the place of planters, merchants, and small farmers within it; the evolution of racial attitudes and patterns of race relations; and the emergence of a national state possessing vastly expanded authority and committed, for a time, to the principle of equal rights for all Americans. This smart book of enormous strengths (Boston Globe) remains the standard work on the wrenching post-Civil War period—an era whose legacy still reverberates in the United States today.
  redeemers us history: With Fire and Sword Thomas A. Deblack, 2003-07-01 When Arkansas seceded from the Union in 1861, it was a thriving state. But the Civil War and Reconstruction left it reeling, impoverished, and so deeply divided that it never regained the level of prosperity it had previously enjoyed. Although most of the major battles of the war occurred elsewhere, Arkansas was critical to the Confederate war effort in the vast Trans-Mississippi region, and Arkansas soldiers served—some for the Union and more for the Confederacy—in every major theater of the war. And the war within the state was devastating. Union troops occupied various areas, citizens suffered greatly from the war's economic disruption, and guerilla conflict and factional tensions left a bitter legacy. Reconstruction was in many ways a continuation of the war as the prewar elite fought to regain economic and political power. In this, the fourth volume in the Histories of Arkansas series, Thomas DeBlack not only describes the major players and events in this dramatic and painful story, but also explores the experiences of ordinary people. Although the historical evidence is complex—and much of the secondary literature is extraordinarily partisan—DeBlack offers a balanced, vivid overview of the state's most tumultuous period.
  redeemers us history: Patriots and Redeemers in Japan George M. Wilson, 1992 Like the French Revolution, the Meiji Restoration transformed a whole society. Japan was never the same after 1868. The meaning of the events that led to the restoration has therefore profoundly concerned historians, but most Western accounts probe only the dimension of political leadership, largely ignoring the common people. In this book, George Wilson argues that the restoration was a total national event--a revolution to redeem the whole realm of Japan--accomplished by samurai and commoners alike. This study foregrounds the classic contest of agency versus structure, focusing on the actors in Meiji Restoration history rather than the institutions through which they acted. Wilson argues that the samurai who triumphed sought not only the patriotic goal of defending the realm against the external threat of Western imperialism but also the redemptive goal of rescuing the realm from the bakufu's failures. The common people no less than the samurai elite wanted to save Japan in its time of troubles. According to Wilson, redemption complemented patriotism as a motive for both the elite and the general public, contributing a double force to Japan's rising nationalism.
  redeemers us history: The Promise of the New South Edward L. Ayers, 2007-09-07 At a public picnic in the South in the 1890s, a young man paid five cents for his first chance to hear the revolutionary Edison talking machine. He eagerly listened as the soundman placed the needle down, only to find that through the tubes he held to his ears came the chilling sounds of a lynching. In this story, with its blend of new technology and old hatreds, genteel picnics and mob violence, Edward Ayers captures the history of the South in the years between Reconstruction and the turn of the century. Ranging from the Georgia coast to the Tennessee mountains, from the power brokers to tenant farmers, Ayers depicts a land of startling contrasts. Ayers takes us from remote Southern towns, revolutionized by the spread of the railroads, to the statehouses where Democratic Redeemers swept away the legacy of Reconstruction; from the small farmers, trapped into growing nothing but cotton, to the new industries of Birmingham; from abuse and intimacy in the family to tumultuous public meetings of the prohibitionists. He explores every aspect of society, politics, and the economy, detailing the importance of each in the emerging New South. Central to the entire story is the role of race relations, from alliances and friendships between blacks and whites to the spread of Jim Crows laws and disfranchisement. The teeming nineteenth-century South comes to life in these pages. When this book first appeared in 1992, it won a broad array of prizes and was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. The citation for the National Book Award declared Promise of the New South a vivid and masterfully detailed picture of the evolution of a new society. The Atlantic called it one of the broadest and most original interpretations of southern history of the past twenty years.
  redeemers us history: Redemption Nicholas Lemann, 2007-08-21 A century after Appomattox, the civil rights movement won full citizenship for black Americans in the South. It should not have been necessary: by 1870 those rights were set in the Constitution. This is the story of the terrorist campaign that took them away. Nicholas Lemann opens his extraordinary new book with a riveting account of the horrific events of Easter 1873 in Colfax, Louisiana, where a white militia of Confederate veterans-turned-vigilantes attacked the black community there and massacred hundreds of people in a gruesome killing spree. This was the start of an insurgency that changed the course of American history: for the next few years white Southern Democrats waged a campaign of political terrorism aiming to overturn the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments and challenge President Grant'ssupport for the emergent structures of black political power. The remorseless strategy of well-financed White Line organizations was to create chaos and keep blacks from voting out of fear for their lives and livelihoods. Redemption is the first book to describe in uncompromising detail this organized racial violence, which reached its apogee in Mississippi in 1875. Lemann bases his devastating account on a wealth of military records, congressional investigations, memoirs, press reports, and the invaluable papers of Adelbert Ames, the war hero from Maine who was Mississippi's governor at the time. When Ames pleaded with Grant for federal troops who could thwart the white terrorists violently disrupting Republican political activities, Grant wavered, and the result was a bloody, corrupt election in which Mississippi was redeemed—that is, returned to white control. Redemption makes clear that this is what led to the death of Reconstruction—and of the rights encoded in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. We are still living with the consequences.
  redeemers us history: The Reconstruction Era and the Fragility of Democracy Facing History and Ourselves, 2017-11-22 provides history teachers with dozens of primary and secondary source documents, close reading exercises, lesson plans, and activity suggestions that will push students both to build a complex understanding of the dilemmas and conflicts Americans faced during Reconstruction.
  redeemers us history: The Redeemers Return A.W Pink, 2017-10-14 This book is designed mainly for those who are beginners in the study of prophetic and dispensational truth, though should it fall into the hands of those who are looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ and who have, perhaps for years, been giving earnest heed to the more sure Word of prophecy, we trust that it will afford meat in due season and stimulate praise to God for the marvelous and blessed prospect which His Word sets before us. Many books have already appeared before the public presenting in clear and Scriptural language the various aspects of the subject of our Lord's Return, and we hesitated long before we decided to add one more to the number. The different chapters in this volume have been given by the writer in sermon and lecture form to numerous audiences both in this country and in England, and it is only the repeated requests of many of those who have heard these addresses which has caused us to now set them down in writing.
  redeemers us history: The Impact of the Civil War and Reconstruction on Arkansas Carl H. Moneyhon, 1994 The third section is a masterly examination of the politics of Reconstruction and Redemption in Arkansas, the state's postwar economy, and the experience of the former slaves.
  redeemers us history: The Redeemers Ace Atkins, 2015-07-21 In this “morbidly funny”(The New York Times) thriller in Ace Atkin’s southern crime series, former Mississippi sheriff Quinn Colson might be out of a job—but that doesn't mean he’s staying out of trouble... Quinn Colson is unemployed—voted out of his position as sheriff of Tibbehah County, Mississippi. He has offers in bigger and better places, but before he goes, Colson’s got one more job to do—bring down county kingpin Johnny Stagg’s criminal operations for good. At least that's the plan. But in the middle of the long, hot summer, somebody smashes through the house of a wealthy mill owner, making off with a safe full of money and shooting a deputy. As Deputy Lillie Virgil hunts the criminals and draws Colson in, other people join the chase, too, but with a much more personal motive. For that safe contained more than just money—it held secrets. And as Colson well knows, some secrets can kill.
  redeemers us history: The Wars of Reconstruction Douglas R. Egerton, 2014-01-21 A groundbreaking new history, telling the stories of hundreds of African-American activists and officeholders who risked their lives for equality-in the face of murderous violence-in the years after the Civil War. By 1870, just five years after Confederate surrender and thirteen years after the Dred Scott decision ruled blacks ineligible for citizenship, Congressional action had ended slavery and given the vote to black men. That same year, Hiram Revels and Joseph Hayne Rainey became the first African-American U.S. senator and congressman respectively. In South Carolina, only twenty years after the death of arch-secessionist John C. Calhoun, a black man, Jasper J. Wright, took a seat on the state's Supreme Court. Not even the most optimistic abolitionists thought such milestones would occur in their lifetimes. The brief years of Reconstruction marked the United States' most progressive moment prior to the civil rights movement. Previous histories of Reconstruction have focused on Washington politics. But in this sweeping, prodigiously researched narrative, Douglas Egerton brings a much bigger, even more dramatic story into view, exploring state and local politics and tracing the struggles of some fifteen hundred African-American officeholders, in both the North and South, who fought entrenched white resistance. Tragically, their movement was met by ruthless violence-not just riotous mobs, but also targeted assassination. With stark evidence, Egerton shows that Reconstruction, often cast as a “failure” or a doomed experiment, was rolled back by murderous force. The Wars of Reconstruction is a major and provocative contribution to American history.
  redeemers us history: Red River Valley Patrick G. Williams, 2007 Though Lyndon Johnson developed a reputation as a rough-hewn, arm-twisting deal-maker with a drawl, at a crucial moment in history he delivered an address to Congress that moved Martin Luther King Jr. to tears and earned praise from the media as the best presidential speech in American history. Even today, his voting rights address of 1965 ranks high not only in political significance, but also as an example of leadership through oratory.
  redeemers us history: The Right to Vote Alexander Keyssar, 2009-06-30 Originally published in 2000, The Right to Vote was widely hailed as a magisterial account of the evolution of suffrage from the American Revolution to the end of the twentieth century. In this revised and updated edition, Keyssar carries the story forward, from the disputed presidential contest of 2000 through the 2008 campaign and the election of Barack Obama. The Right to Vote is a sweeping reinterpretation of American political history as well as a meditation on the meaning of democracy in contemporary American life.
  redeemers us history: Southern Reconstruction Philip Leigh, 2017 Examines Federal wartime legislation in order to broaden our understanding of Reconstruction, revealing how it led to African Americans being used as political pawns, first to ensure continued Republican rule, and finally to be blamed for the South's hardships in order to draw poor whites away from Populism and back to the aristocratic white Democratic banner. Civil War laws transformed America's banking system, built a railroad web, and launched the Gilded Age in the North and West, but, Leigh contends, these laws also created a dubious alliance between banks and government, sparked corruption, purposely depressed Southern industry, trapped Southern farmers--both black and white--in endless annual peonage cycles, and failed to provide lands for freedmen. While Reconstruction was intended to return the South to the Union, it could not be effective with laws that abetted Southern poverty, disfranchised many whites, fostered racial animosity to a point where lynchings and Jim Crow laws erupted, and lined the pockets of wealthy or politically well-connected business leaders outside of the region. --From publisher description.
  redeemers us history: New Orleans after the Civil War Justin A. Nystrom, 2010-06-01 We often think of Reconstruction as an unfinished revolution. Justin A. Nystrom’s original study of the aftermath of emancipation in New Orleans takes a different perspective, arguing that the politics of the era were less of a binary struggle over political supremacy and morality than they were about a quest for stability in a world rendered uncertain and unfamiliar by the collapse of slavery. Commercially vibrant and racially unique before the Civil War, New Orleans after secession and following Appomattox provides an especially interesting case study in political and social adjustment. Taking a generational view and using longitudinal studies of some of the major political players of the era, New Orleans after the Civil War asks fundamentally new questions about life in the post–Civil War South: Who would emerge as leaders in the prostrate but economically ambitious city? How would whites who differed over secession come together over postwar policy? Where would the mixed-race middle class and newly freed slaves fit in the new order? Nystrom follows not only the period’s broad contours and occasional bloody conflicts but also the coalition building and the often surprising liaisons that formed to address these and related issues. His unusual approach breaks free from the worn stereotypes of Reconstruction to explore the uncertainty, self-doubt, and moral complexity that haunted Southerners after the war. This probing look at a generation of New Orleanians and how they redefined a society shattered by the Civil War engages historical actors on their own terms and makes real the human dimension of life during this difficult period in American history.
  redeemers us history: Reconstruction Allen C. Guelzo, 2018 Allen C. Guelzo's Reconstruction: A Concise History is a gracefully written interpretation of Reconstruction as a spirited struggle to reintegrate the defeated Southern Confederacy into the American Union after the Civil War, to bring African Americans into the political mainstream of American life, and to recreate the Southern economy after a Northern free-labor model.
  redeemers us history: Southern Crossing Edward L. Ayers, 1995-01-12 Edward L. Ayers monumental history, Promise of the New South, was praised by the eminent historian Bertram Wyatt-Brown as A work of frequently stunning beauty, who added The elegance and sensitivity that he achieves are typical of few historical works. Winner of the James A. Rawley Prize for Best Book on American Race Relations from the Organization of American Historians, and the Frank Lawrence Owsley and Harriett Chappell Owsley Award from the Southern Historical Association, and finalist for the 1992 National Book Award, the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for History, and the 1993 Southern Book Award, Promise of the New South established Ayers as one of the foremost scholars of the American South. Now, in this newly revised edition, Ayers has distilled this remarkable work to offer an even more readable account of the New South. Ranging from the Georgia coast to the Tennessee mountains, from the power brokers to tenant farmers, Ayers depicts a land of startling contrasts--a time of progress and repression, of new industries and old ways. Ayers takes us from remote Southern towns, revolutionized by the spread of the railroads, to the statehouses where Democratic Redeemers swept away the legacy of Reconstruction; from the small farmers, trapped into growing nothing but cotton, to the new industries of Birmingham; from abuse and intimacy in the family to tumultuous public meetings of the prohibitionists. He explores every aspect of society, politics, and the economy, detailing the importance of each in the emerging New South. Here is the local Baptist congregation, the country store, the tobacco-stained second-class railroad car, the rise of Populism: the teeming, nineteenth-century South comes to life in these pages. And central to the entire story is the role of race relations, from alliances and friendships between blacks and whites to the spread of Jim Crow laws and disenfranchisement. Ayers weaves all these details into the contradictory story of the New South, showing how the region developed the patterns it was to follow for the next fifty years. A vivid portrait of a society undergoing the sudden confrontation of the promises, costs, and consequences of modern life, this is an unforgettable account of the New South--a land with one foot in the future and the other in the past.
  redeemers us history: G.I. Messiahs Jonathan H. Ebel, 2015-11-24 Jonathan Ebel has long been interested in how religion helps individuals and communities render meaningful the traumatic experiences of violence and war. In this new work, he examines cases from the Great War to the present day and argues that our notions of what it means to be an American soldier are not just strongly religious, but strongly Christian. Drawing on a vast array of sources, he further reveals the effects of soldier veneration on the men and women so often cast as heroes. Imagined as the embodiments of American ideals, described as redeemers of the nation, adored as the ones willing to suffer and die that we, the nation, may live—soldiers have often lived in subtle but significant tension with civil religious expectations of them. With chapters on prominent soldiers past and present, Ebel recovers and re-narrates the stories of the common American men and women that live and die at both the center and edges of public consciousness.
  redeemers us history: Forgotten Continent: The Battle for Latin America's Soul Michael Reid, 2010-08-18 The bestselling primer on the social, political, and economic challenges facing Central and South America by The Economist editor and author of Brazil. Latin America has often been condemned to failure. Neither poor enough to evoke Africa’s moral crusade, nor as explosively booming as India and China, it has largely been overlooked by the West. Yet this vast continent, home to half a billion people, the world’s largest reserves of arable land, and 8.5 percent of global oil, is busily transforming its political and economic landscape. This book argues that rather than failing the test, Latin America’s efforts to build fairer and more prosperous societies make it one of the world’s most vigorous laboratories for capitalist democracy. In many countries—including Brazil, Chile and Mexico—democratic leaders are laying the foundations for faster economic growth and more inclusive politics, as well as tackling deep-rooted problems of poverty, inequality, and social injustice. They face a new challenge from Hugo Chávez’s oil-fueled populism, and much is at stake. Failure will increase the flow of drugs and illegal immigrants to the United States and Europe, jeopardize stability in a region rich in oil and other strategic commodities, and threaten some of the world’s most majestic natural environments. Drawing on Michael Reid’s many years of reporting from inside Latin America’s cities, presidential palaces, and shantytowns, the book provides a vivid, immediate, and informed account of a dynamic continent and its struggle to compete in a globalized world. “No one who seriously aspires to discuss Latin American politics, economics, and culture should go without reading Forgotten Continent.”—National Interest
  redeemers us history: The Gilded Age Mark Twain, Charles Dudley Warner, 1892
  redeemers us history: God and the Gay Christian Matthew Vines, 2014 Reinterpretations of key Bible texts related to sexual orientation, written by a Harvard student, present an accessible case for a modern Christian conservative acceptance of sexual diversity.
  redeemers us history: Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands Paul David Tripp, 2002 We might be relieved if God placed our sanctification only in the hands of trained professionals, but that is not his plan. Instead, through the ministry of every part of the body, the whole church will mature in Christ. Paul David Tripp helps us discover where change is needed in our own lives and the lives of others. Following the example of Jesus, Tripp reveals how to get to know people and how to lovingly speak truth to them. - Back cover.
  redeemers us history: The Dunning School John David Smith, J. Vincent Lowery, 2013-10-14 From the late nineteenth century until World War I, a group of Columbia University students gathered under the mentorship of the renowned historian William Archibald Dunning (1857--1922). Known as the Dunning School, these students wrote the first generation of state studies on the Reconstruction -- volumes that generally sympathized with white southerners, interpreted radical Reconstruction as a mean-spirited usurpation of federal power, and cast the Republican Party as a coalition of carpetbaggers, freedmen, scalawags, and former Unionists. Edited by the award-winning historian John David Smith and J. Vincent Lowery, The Dunning School focuses on this controversial group of historians and its scholarly output. Despite their methodological limitations and racial bias, the Dunning historians' writings prefigured the sources and questions that later historians of the Reconstruction would utilize and address. Many of their pioneering dissertations remain important to ongoing debates on the broad meaning of the Civil War and Reconstruction and the evolution of American historical scholarship. This groundbreaking collection of original essays offers a fair and critical assessment of the Dunning School that focuses on the group's purpose, the strengths and weaknesses of its constituents, and its legacy. Squaring the past with the present, this important book also explores the evolution of historical interpretations over time and illuminates the ways in which contemporary political, racial, and social questions shape historical analyses.
  redeemers us history: A Patriot's History of the United States Larry Schweikart, Michael Allen, 2014-11-25 For the past three decades, many history professors have allowed their biases to distort the way America’s past is taught. These intellectuals have searched for instances of racism, sexism, and bigotry in our history while downplaying the greatness of America’s patriots and the achievements of “dead white men.” As a result, more emphasis is placed on Harriet Tubman than on George Washington; more about the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II than about D-Day or Iwo Jima; more on the dangers we faced from Joseph McCarthy than those we faced from Josef Stalin. A Patriot’s History of the United States corrects those doctrinaire biases. In this groundbreaking book, America’s discovery, founding, and development are reexamined with an appreciation for the elements of public virtue, personal liberty, and private property that make this nation uniquely successful. This book offers a long-overdue acknowledgment of America’s true and proud history.
  redeemers us history: A Confused and Confusing Affair Mark K. Christ, 2018 Reconstruction has been called one of the most tumultuous and controversial periods of Arkansas's history, an era in which African Americans sought to secure the benefits of their hard-won freedom, the former leaders of the state pursued restoration of their pre-war economic and political status, and the U.S. Army and the Freedmen's Bureau sought to maintain a balance between these competing interests. By the time Reconstruction ended in 1874, Arkansas had been wracked by brutal political violence, black legislators had experienced their first opportunities for service, and the Republican Party was embroiled in the tragicomedy of the Brooks-Baxter War, setting the stage for the rise of the Democratic Redeemers. While thousands of books have been written about the American Civil War, the tense period that followed the war has received relatively little attention. In light of this, the Old State House Museum in Little Rock brought a distinguished group of experts together for a day-long seminar in 2017 to discuss Reconstruction in Arkansas and its aftermath. Speakers discussed the greater issue of Reconstruction across the South, the political situation in Arkansas during the period, the activities of African American legislators in the state, political and military violence during Reconstruction, the long-lasting effects of the 1874 state constitution, and the bizarre affair in which two men with claims to the governor's office fought over control of the state capitol. In this collection of essays written by the event's speakers, Carl H. Moneyhon provides an overview of Reconstruction in the United States, Jay Barth explores post-Civil War politics, Blake Wintory discusses the African Americans who served in the Arkansas General Assembly, Damon Cluck delves into the Arkansas militias that provided the firepower for Reconstruction violence, Kenneth Barnes gives insights into the political violence that convulsed the state, Thomas DeBlack unravels the Brooks-Baxter War, and Rodney Harris visits the 1874 Constitution and its effects on Arkansas's future. The writings collected in this volume offer valuable insights into Reconstruction in Arkansas and how its effects still resonate today.
  redeemers us history: Redeemer Nation Orrin Schwab, 2004 In this book, Dr. Orrin Schwab develops the concept of the modern technocratic state as part of a global technocratic culture and civilization. The author argues that technocratic cultural and institutional forms were, and are, part of a collective ?script? for Western culture. The American script, combined the scientific, commercial, and technological aspects of the Enlightenment with the radical 17th century Protestant belief in America as a new Zion. In the twentieth century, the synthesis of mission, along with global technocratic knowledge and institutions, created the Wilsonian liberal technocratic order. As the principal agent and protector of the modern capitalist international system, America, the self-defined Redeemer Nation, has moved through the controlled anarchy of international relations, from one war and crisis to the next, confirmed in its self-defined role and mission.
  redeemers us history: The Black Avenger in Atlantic Culture Grégory Pierrot, 2019 With the Ta-Nehisi Coates-authored Black Panther comic book series (2016); recent films Django Unchained (2012) and The Birth of a Nation (2016); Nate Parker's cinematic imagining of the Nat Turner rebellion; and screen adaptations of Marvel's Luke Cage (2016) and Black Panther (2018); violent black redeemers have rarely been so present in mainstream Western culture. Grégory Pierrot argues, however, that the black avenger has always been with us: the trope has fired the news and imaginations of the United States and the larger Atlantic World for three centuries. The black avenger channeled fresh anxieties about slave uprisings and racial belonging occasioned by European colonization in the Americas. Even as he is portrayed as a heathen and a barbarian, his values-honor, loyalty, love-reflect his ties to the West. Yet being racially different, he cannot belong, and his qualities in turn make him an anomaly among black people. The black avenger is thus a liminal figure defining racial borders. Where his body lies, lies the color line. Regularly throughout the modern era and to this day, variations on the trope have contributed to defining race in the Atlantic World and thwarting the constitution of a black polity. Pierrot's The Black Avenger in Atlantic Culture studies this cultural history, examining a multicultural and cross-historical network of print material including fiction, drama, poetry, news, and historical writing as well as visual culture. It tracks the black avenger trope from its inception in the seventeenth century to the U.S. occupation of Haiti in 1915. Pierrot argues that this Western archetype plays an essential role in helping exclusive, hostile understandings of racial belonging become normalized in the collective consciousness of Atlantic nations. His study follows important articulations of the figure and how it has shifted based on historical and cultural contexts.
  redeemers us history: On Account of Race Lawrence Goldstone, 2020-05-05 Winner of the Lillian Smith Book Award An award–winning constitutional law historian examines case–based evidence of the court's longstanding racial bias (often under the guise of states rights) to reveal how that prejudice has allowed the court to solidify its position as arguably the most powerful branch of the federal government. One promise of democracy is the right of every citizen to vote. And yet, from our founding, strong political forces were determined to limit that right. The Supreme Court, Alexander Hamilton wrote, would protect the weak against this very sort of tyranny. Still, as On Account of Race forcefully demonstrates, through the better part of American history the Court has instead been a protector of white rule. And complex threats against the right to vote persist even today. Beginning in 1876, the Supreme Court systematically dismantled both the equal protection guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment and what seemed to be the right to vote in the Fifteenth. And so a half million African Americans across the South who had risked their lives and property to be allowed to cast ballots were stricken from voting rolls by white supremacists. This vacuum allowed for the rise of Jim Crow. None of this was done in the shadows—those determined to wrest the vote from black Americans could not have been more boastful in either intent or execution. On Account of Race tells the story of an American tragedy, the only occasion in United States history in which a group of citizens who had been granted the right to vote then had it stripped away. It is a warning that the right to vote is fragile and must be carefully guarded and actively preserved lest American democracy perish.
  redeemers us history: The Redeemer’s Return Arthur Walkington Pink, 2002
  redeemers us history: The Oxford Handbook of American Political History Paula Baker, Donald T. Critchlow, 2020-03-06 American political and policy history has revived since the turn of the twenty-first century. After social and cultural history emerged as dominant forces to reveal the importance of class, race, and gender within the United States, the application of this line of work to American politics and policy followed. In addition, social movements, particularly the civil rights and feminism, helped rekindle political and policy history. As a result, a new generation of historians turned their attention to American politics. Their new approach still covers traditional subjects, but more often it combines an interest in the state, politics, and policy with other specialties (urban, labor, social, and race, among others) within the history and social science disciplines. The Oxford Handbook of American Political History incorporates and reflects this renaissance of American political history. It not only provides a chronological framework but also illustrates fundamental political themes and debates about public policy, including party systems, women in politics, political advertising, religion, and more. Chapters on economy, defense, agriculture, immigration, transportation, communication, environment, social welfare, health care, drugs and alcohol, education, and civil rights trace the development and shifts in American policy history. This collection of essays by 29 distinguished scholars offers a comprehensive overview of American politics and policy.
  redeemers us history: The Life and Death of the Solid South Dewey W. Grantham, 2014-07-11 Southern-style politics was one of those peculiar institutions that differentiated the South from other American regions. This system—long referred to as the Solid South—embodied a distinctive regional culture and was perpetuated through an undemocratic distribution of power and a structure based on disfranchisement, malapportioned legislatures, and one-party politics. It was the mechanism that determined who would govern in the states and localities, and in national politics it was the means through which the South's politicians defended their region's special interests and political autonomy. The history of this remarkable institution can be traced in the gradual rise, long persistence, and ultimate decline of the Democratic Party dominance in the land below the Potomac and the Ohio. This is the story that Dewey W. Grantham tells in his fresh and authoritative account of the South's modern political experience. The distillation of many years of research and reflection, is both a synthesis of the extensive literature on politics in the recent South and a challenging reinterpretation of the region's political history.
  redeemers us history: Black Reconstruction in America 1860-1880 W. E. B. Du Bois, 1998 The pioneering work in the study of the role of Black Americans during Reconstruction by the most influential Black intellectual of his time. This pioneering work was the first full-length study of the role black Americans played in the crucial period after the Civil War, when the slaves had been freed and the attempt was made to reconstruct American society. Hailed at the time, Black Reconstruction in America 1860–1880 has justly been called a classic.
  redeemers us history: What Hath God Wrought Daniel Walker Howe, 2007-10-29 The Oxford History of the United States is by far the most respected multi-volume history of our nation. In this Pulitzer prize-winning, critically acclaimed addition to the series, historian Daniel Walker Howe illuminates the period from the battle of New Orleans to the end of the Mexican-American War, an era when the United States expanded to the Pacific and won control over the richest part of the North American continent. A panoramic narrative, What Hath God Wrought portrays revolutionary improvements in transportation and communications that accelerated the extension of the American empire. Railroads, canals, newspapers, and the telegraph dramatically lowered travel times and spurred the spread of information. These innovations prompted the emergence of mass political parties and stimulated America's economic development from an overwhelmingly rural country to a diversified economy in which commerce and industry took their place alongside agriculture. In his story, the author weaves together political and military events with social, economic, and cultural history. Howe examines the rise of Andrew Jackson and his Democratic party, but contends that John Quincy Adams and other Whigs--advocates of public education and economic integration, defenders of the rights of Indians, women, and African-Americans--were the true prophets of America's future. In addition, Howe reveals the power of religion to shape many aspects of American life during this period, including slavery and antislavery, women's rights and other reform movements, politics, education, and literature. Howe's story of American expansion culminates in the bitterly controversial but brilliantly executed war waged against Mexico to gain California and Texas for the United States. Winner of the New-York Historical Society American History Book Prize Finalist, 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction The Oxford History of the United States The Oxford History of the United States is the most respected multi-volume history of our nation. The series includes three Pulitzer Prize winners, a New York Times bestseller, and winners of the Bancroft and Parkman Prizes. The Atlantic Monthly has praised it as the most distinguished series in American historical scholarship, a series that synthesizes a generation's worth of historical inquiry and knowledge into one literally state-of-the-art book. Conceived under the general editorship of C. Vann Woodward and Richard Hofstadter, and now under the editorship of David M. Kennedy, this renowned series blends social, political, economic, cultural, diplomatic, and military history into coherent and vividly written narrative.
  redeemers us history: U.S. History P. Scott Corbett, Volker Janssen, John M. Lund, Todd Pfannestiel, Sylvie Waskiewicz, Paul Vickery, 2024-09-10 U.S. History is designed to meet the scope and sequence requirements of most introductory courses. The text provides a balanced approach to U.S. history, considering the people, events, and ideas that have shaped the United States from both the top down (politics, economics, diplomacy) and bottom up (eyewitness accounts, lived experience). U.S. History covers key forces that form the American experience, with particular attention to issues of race, class, and gender.
  redeemers us history: Center Church Timothy Keller, 2012-09-04 Practical and Gospel-centered thoughts on how to have a fruitful ministry by one of America's leading and most beloved pastor. Many church leaders are struggling to adapt to a culture that values individuality above loyalty to a group or institution. There have been so many church growth and effective ministry books in the past few decades that it's hard to know where to start or which ones will provide useful and honest insight. Based on over twenty years of ministry in New York City, Timothy Keller takes a unique approach that measures a ministry's success neither by numbers nor purely by the faithfulness of its leaders, but on the biblical grounds of fruitfulness. Center Church outlines a balanced theological vision for ministry organized around three core commitments: Gospel-centered: The gospel of grace in Jesus Christ changes everything, from our hearts to our community to the world. It completely reshapes the content, tone, and strategy of all that we do. City-centered: With a positive approach toward our culture, we learn to affirm that cities are wonderful, strategic, and under-served places for gospel ministry. Movement-centered: Instead of building our own tribe, we seek the prosperity and peace of our community as we are led by the Holy Spirit. Between a pastor's doctrinal beliefs and ministry practices should be a well-conceived vision for how to bring the gospel to bear on the particular cultural setting and historical moment. This is something more practical than just doctrine but much more theological than how-to steps for carrying out a ministry. Once this vision is in place, it leads church leaders to make good decisions on how to worship, disciple, evangelize, serve, and engage culture in their field of ministry—whether in a city, suburb, or small town. — Tim Keller, Core Church