You are invited to dinner in Savannah in 1868. The mother of a Black family has prepared a special meal to commemorate the new Georgia State Constitution that her husband and pastor have helped to create.
Reconstruction 360 uses a 360 degree video platform as a storytelling device that lets the audience step inside pivotal Reconstruction events. By clicking on icons within the 360 video the user can access short documentaries that offer the perspectives of multiple characters, historians and descendants. Reconstruction 360 also includes lesson plans, curriculum standards and primary documents. This module, A Seat at the Table, focuses on the theme of institution building, with a focus on the institution of family.
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In 1866 a new Republican Congress defied President Andrew Johnson and began the period known as Radical Reconstruction. Southern states created new constitutions that gave the right to vote to all men...
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Many of the foods enjoyed by enslaved and freedpeople - and Americans today - originally came from Africa. In this video culinary historian Michael Twitty discusses the origins of African American...
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Black Churches have often served as places to meet and organize, and during Reconstruction many religious leaders were elected to political office. In the Civil Rights movement of the 20th century...
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In West Africa, elders are greatly respected and family groups often form the basis of society, but the institution of slavery tore African American families apart. Freedom meant that families...
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Between 1820 and 1860, slave owners in the upper South sold nearly a million enslaved people to plantations in the lower South. After they gained their freedom, formerly enslaved people published...
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Over time, Black Southerners developed their own forms of worship. They incorporated some African religious traditions and turned certain biblical stories to their own purposes, envisioning a God who...
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During Reconstruction women who had been enslaved could finally devote themselves to their own families. The work of women was always vital to the Black family and community, throughout enslavement...
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After the slave revolt led by Nat Turner in 1831, most Southern states passed laws making it a crime to teach the enslaved to read and write. During Reconstruction freedpeople demanded education, and...
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The Reconstruction Acts of 1867 divided the South into five military districts and directed the Army to register Black and White men to vote. Former Confederate states had to write new constitutions...
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The Hoskins-Brown family of Savannah, Georgia, embodies some important African American traditions – respect for elders, a strong female head of household, caring neighbors. But they are also creating...