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Gates stony the road6/21/2023 ![]() ![]() The potential of Republican leadership, black self-advocacy temporarily realized, the redemption movement by white supremacists reversing the black community’s gains post slavery, and the depths of racist support for Jim Crow segregation all make for a compelling story - and Gates tells it well. ![]() ![]() ![]() I tend not to hold a grudge, and despite these rather troublesome shortcomings, I still respect Gates, his dedication to scholarship, and his drive to understand the black experience in American history.Īnd so his look at the trajectory and legacy of Reconstruction piqued my interest. In addition, Gates was charged with violating PBS editorial standards when the program Finding Your Roots - a show he produced - agreed not to air an episode that exposed the slave-holding history of a famous actor. Honestly - I think Gates was mislead by some of the more problematic evidence of the period…while trying to to make sense of the complexity of the Confederate cause. For example, in 2009 he concluded that black soldiers served in the Confederate Army, a myth masterfully debunked over the years by historian Kevin Levin on his blog Civil War Memory and in his recent publication, Searching for Black Confederates: The Civil War’s Most Persistent Myth. Now, I have at times questioned Gates’s judgement. It makes for a wonderful companion piece to the documentary and I highly recommend it. Of course I ran right out and bought Gates’s new book, Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow. ![]()
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