This Ghost of Slavery
A play of past and present
December 2023
In This Issue
On Reconstruction: Lonnie G. Bunch III, Drew Gilpin Faust, Eric Foner, Adam Harris, Peniel E. Joseph, Vann R. Newkirk II, and Jordan Virtue on America’s most radical experiment. Plus David W. Blight annotates Frederick Douglass, a new play by Anna Deavere Smith, and more.
On Reconstruction
Editor's Note: The Questions That Most Need Asking
The Atlantic revisits Reconstruction.
Why Is America Afraid of Black History?
No one should fear a history that asks a country to live up to its highest ideals.
How Black Americans Kept Reconstruction Alive
The federal government abandoned Reconstruction in 1877, but Black people didn’t give up on the moment’s promise.
What The Atlantic Got Wrong About Reconstruction
In 1901, a series of articles took a dim view of the era, and of the idea that all Americans ought to participate in the democratic process.
The Annotated Frederick Douglass
In 1866, the famous abolitionist laid out his vision for radically reshaping America in the pages of The Atlantic.
Freedmen’s Town
How one photographer documented the disappearing landscape of Houston’s Fourth Ward
How the Negro Spiritual Changed American Popular Music—And America Itself
In 1871, the Fisk University singers embarked on a tour that introduced white Americans to a Black sound that would reshape the nation.
The Men Who Started the War
John Brown and the Secret Six—the abolitionists who funded the raid on Harpers Ferry—confronted a question as old as America: When is violence justified?
How John F. Kennedy Fell for the Lost Cause
And the grandmother who wouldn’t let him get away with it
How Reconstruction Created American Public Education
Freedpeople and their advocates persuaded the nation to embrace schooling for all.
The Confederate General Whom All the Other Confederates Hated
James Longstreet became a champion of Reconstruction. Why?
Sitcom
A poem
