A Northwestern Oklahoma State University assistant professor of English will be publishing a book review in the print journal “Arkansas Review: A Journal of Delta Studies.”
Dr. Richmond Adams’ book review discusses “After Appomattox: Military Occupation and the Ends of War” written by Gregory P. Downs, an associate professor of history and graduate center at the City University of New York.
Downs explores the role played by the Union military in the immediate years of Reconstruction following General Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House.
“Downs argues that Reconstruction, once believed to be a failed experiment, actually brought about many positive results, such as expanding the nature of American citizenship,” Adams said. “It opened the ballot to former slaves—all men, despite efforts to open the franchise to women—the establishment of schools, hospitals, and the desegregation of public facilities.”
Adams continued by noting how, as Downs points out, the former Confederate leaders, and the white Southerners who followed them, did not accept these efforts at a new and integrated social order. From these complex cultural and political tensions arose almost immediately such organizations as the Ku Klux Klan. Consequently, violence and death spread throughout much of the South for many years after the war had officially ended.
The review will be published sometime between this fall and the spring of 2016.
“American historians and literary critics almost all agree that the Civil War and its aftermath was the single most important watershed event in our nation’s history,” Adams said. “Given the summer’s events in Charleston, where the war technically began, we as Americans need to grasp just how much the war and its immediate aftermath continues to affect our national life 150 years later.”
For more information on Adams’ publication please call (580) 327-8428 or email him at rbadams@nwosu.edu.