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All Episodes of Reconstruction: America After the Civil War

Browse all episodes of Reconstruction: America After the Civil War

Explore the transformative years following the American Civil War, when the nation struggled to rebuild itself in the face of profound loss, massive destruction, and...
Genre:Documentary
Network:PBS
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Season 1

  • Part 1, Hour 1
    8.3/1026 votes
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    Part 1, Hour 1

    Season 1 Episode 1 - Aired 4/9/2019

    The aftermath of the Civil War was bewildering, exhilarating...and terrifying. African Americans had played a crucial role in saving the Union and now, as the country grappled with the terms and implications of Reconstruction, they struggled to breathe life into their hard-won freedom. The result was a second American Revolution.

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  • Part 1, Hour 2
    8.1/1022 votes
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    Part 1, Hour 2

    Season 1 Episode 2 - Aired 4/9/2019

    Post-Civil War America was a new world. For African Americans living in the former Confederacy, Reconstruction was what historian W. E. B. Du Bois once described as their “brief moment in the sun.” But support for the social, economic, and political gains they achieved didn’t last long. A controversial presidential election in 1876 deals Reconstruction a grievous blow.

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  • Part 2, Hour 1
    7.8/1017 votes
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    Part 2, Hour 1

    Season 1 Episode 3 - Aired 4/16/2019

    An examination of the years 1877-1896, a transitional period that saw visions of a “New South” set the stage for the rise of Jim Crow and the undermining of Reconstruction’s legal and political legacy. While some African Americans attempted to migrate, the vast majority remained in the South, where sharecropping, convict leasing, disfranchisement, and lynchings drew a “color line”.

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  • Part 2, Hour 2
    7.9/1015 votes
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    Part 2, Hour 2

    Season 1 Episode 4 - Aired 4/16/2019

    The turn of the century is known as the ‘nadir’ of race relations, when white supremacy was ascendant and African Americans faced both physical and psychological oppression. Racist imagery saturated popular culture and Southern propaganda manipulated the story of the Civil War and Reconstruction. But African Americans found ways to fight back, using artistic expression to put forward a “New Negro.”

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