A Guardian article has brought to my attention a new report from the Equal Justice Initiative entitled Reconstruction in America – 1865-1867, documenting the violence perpetrated against black people in the twelve year period immediately following the Civil War, in which the hopes and promises of emancipation and equality were squashed by a brutal white supremacy ideology.
This report is the prequel, so to speak, to their 2015 report Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror that concentrated on the period after Reconstruction up to World War II.
Here is the video introduction, and would encourage all and everyone, as I will surely do, to dive deep into all the other material offered by the EJI, an organisation committed to a fight against racial injustice and mass incarceration.
I don’t think it would be untoward here to mention the originality and fine aesthetic of the animation – and in terms of the illustrations, just say Molly Crabapple.