AFRC2160 - Remembering the Good Old Days: Slavery, the Civil War, and the Creation of an American Fantasy

As the Civil War came to an end a concerted campaign formed to re-imagine and revise the origins and reasons for the war. Within just a couple of decades, former enslavers, their sympathizers, everyday southerners, and many northerners had joined forces to rewrite history. All the while, formerly enslaved people and new generations of free Black people pushed back against the rising tide of collective, and voluntary, historical amnesia in the country. From 1865 to the present day, Americans have continued to wage battles in the Civil War. This course examines American history through a variety of mediums, including newspapers, textbooks, court cases, movies, monuments, and holidays to understand for formation of historical memory. We will examine the national memory of slavery and the Civil War, what they did, could, and would mean, and how this process has been integral to creating an American historical and national identity.