Charles Erick
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ewmpsi.bsky.social
Charles Erick
@ewmpsi.bsky.social
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Music Lover 🎶 | Chess Struggler ♟️ | Tech Whiz 🖥️ | Book Backlog | Guitar Procrastinator 🎸 | Coffee Aficionado ☕ | Science & Math Novice 🧪🧮
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📚 Next up: Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 by Eric Foner.
A deep dive into one of the most transformative—and contested—eras in U.S. history. 🇺🇸

#BookSky #BlackSky

#Reconstruction #EricFoner #AmericanHistory #NowReading
Reposted by Charles Erick
“.. It’s also the fastest accumulation of a trillion dollars in debt outside of the COVID-19 pandemic ..”

@pbsnews.org
www.pbs.org/newshour/pol...
Reposted by Charles Erick
NO KINGS Protest! So strong GLOBALLY!
WE, the PEOPLE of EARTH United
thank you for support, kindness, laughter...

Friday Blue Hearts 11 - DOUBLE PACK #99
go.bsky.app/4PzRsgy

Friday Blue Hearts 12 - DOUBLE PACK #100
go.bsky.app/6EsoW1J
Reposted by Charles Erick
Here’s the original clip of Ronald Reagan from April 25, 1987, where he delivered a complete and total rebuke against tariffs. Trump's calling Reagan’s words here “FAKE” and “fraudulent.” They’re 100% real. And the original clip is actually far worse for Trump, as much is left out of the ad:
Despite terror, Black social and political mobilization persisted—a testament to courage in the face of lethal repression. ✊🏿

#Reconstruction #BlackHistory #CivilRights #EricFoner #AmericanHistory
Arkansas (near Pine Bluff, 1866): After a dispute with freedpeople, a white posse raided a Black settlement, rounding up residents; a visitor later found a horrific scene with dozens lynched around their cabins.
A freedwoman in Rusk County recalled seeing Black bodies floating in the Sabine River, while whites remarked there would be “lots of souls crying against them in Judgment.”
Around Shreveport, a witness claimed over two thousand Black people were murdered in 1865.

Texas: Freedmen’s Bureau officials recorded that Black people were “frequently beaten unmercifully” and shot down without provocation.
... that swept much of the postwar South. While wartime feuds and economic ruin fueled disorder, freedpeople were overwhelmingly the victims.

Louisiana (1865): Locals said the region was ruled “by the pistol and the rifle.” Reports described white men whipping Black men as before the war.
📖 Violence and Everyday Life after the Civil War (from Eric Foner)

Black communities organized churches, lodges, and politics in the face of a wave of white violence...
They invoked the Declaration of Independence, calling it “the broadest, deepest, most truthful definition of human freedom ever given to the world.”

As one freedmen’s convention put it, “The colored people had read the Declaration until it had become part of their natures.”
Some proposed limits based on property or education, but most declared that universal manhood suffrage was “an essential and inseparable element of self-government.” 🗳️

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📖 From Eric Foner’s Reconstruction:

In 1865, Black delegates across the South gathered to define freedom — and demanded equality before the law and the ballot box.
"This is not the pursuit of happiness!"
The movement for freedom had become a movement for political power. ✊🏿
In Norfolk, the Union Monitor Club declared, “Traitors shall not dictate or prescribe the terms of our citizenship.”

In Louisiana, the New Orleans Tribune led the charge for Black suffrage, as freedpeople abandoned plantations en masse to cast their votes. 🗳️
In Wilmington, NC, freedmen formed an Equal Rights League, demanding the same political rights as whites.

In Virginia, “Radical Associations” emerged in major cities.
📖 From Eric Foner’s Reconstruction:

By 1865, Black political mobilization was spreading rapidly through the South. Churches, fraternal societies, and the Freedmen’s Bureau became organizing hubs.
The origins of Black politics were born in those first calls for self-determination and equal citizenship.

#Reconstruction #CivilRights #BlackHistory #EricFoner
Union Leagues and local gatherings united freedpeople, Black soldiers, and Freedmen’s Bureau agents. On St. Helena Island, one meeting declared:

> “By the Declaration of Independence, we believe these are rights which cannot justly be denied us.”
📖 From Eric Foner’s Reconstruction:

In 1865, freedom meant more than release from bondage—it meant inclusion. Black Americans across the South organized mass meetings, parades, and petitions demanding civil equality and the right to vote as the true fulfillment of emancipation. 🗳️✊🏿
Reposted by Charles Erick
Reposted by Charles Erick
"He that beats the drum for the mad man to dance is no better than the mad man himself."

African proverb