The mettle of any history class isn’t found in how teachers handle the “easy” stuff — it’s how they handle the most difficult and problematic episodes of the past. In this vein, Emma Green in a recent New Yorker article questions whether Hillsdale College provides an adequate study of the Reconstruction period of American history, suggesting that Hillsdale doesn’t directly address the prevalence of racial animosity and violence that took place following the U.S. Civil War and into the early 1900s. While it’s true that our American Heritage reader doesn’t currently include specific documents on Reconstruction, it’s fundamentally wrong to imply that we don’t teach this pivotal and harrowing period in our nation’s history.
First, we build on our pre-Reconstruction discussions of slavery and race, pointing out, for example, how Alexander Stephens’s “Cornerstone Speech” demonstrates the sobering degree to which slavery and race were woven into the fabric of the early republic. Indeed, we also discuss the fate of black Americans and the cruelty forced on them during the critical years following the Civil War and through the period of the civil-rights legislation of the 1960s. What we don’t claim, however, is a projected stance of mere victimization or passivity. With Wilfred McClay’s Land of Hope — our excellent companion textbook — we engage thoughtfully and authentically with issues of race and other critical elements of Reconstruction. In doing so, we reveal how both white and black Americans, immigrants, and American Indians were active agents of destiny.
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