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Section 2: Building the Black Community: The Family Section 2: Building the Black Community: The Church Section 2: Building the Black Community: The School Section 2: Quest for Economic Autonomy and Equal Rights Section 2: Memory and Mourning Section 2: Violence

A New Birth of Freedom:
Reconstruction During the Civil War

Most white Southerners reacted to defeat and emancipation with dismay. Many families had suffered the loss of loved ones and the destruction of property. Some thought of leaving the South altogether, or retreated into nostalgia for the Old South and the Lost Cause of the Confederacy.

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In 1865 and 1866 many white Southerners joined memorial associations that established Confederate cemeteries and monuments throughout the region. Others, unwilling to accept a new relationship to former slaves, resorted to violent opposition to the new world being created around them.
Copyright 2003
A New Birth of Freedom: Reconstruction During the Civil War The Meaning of Freedom: Black and White Responses to Slavery