Many people don't know that the civil rights being fought for in the 1960s were actually a reality a century earlier, in the 1860s, for a few short years. Immediately after slavery, Black Americans saw integrated schooling, Black officials elected to office, and social and economic advancement. However, all of this progress was met with such fury, we forget it was ever made at all.

Too many history lessons skip over this eventful period of time. The cultural war that followed the Civil War; surprising gains made; secret, off-the-books political deals... There's a whole lot more to the story than "40 acres and a mule."

Your listen next list:
Juneteenth— All the Stuff No One Ever Taught You on Apple & Spotify
The History of Racism in the Criminal Justice System on Apple & Spotify

Sources: TIME, How the 1876 Election Tested the Constitution and Effectively Ended Reconstruction; TIME, How Reconstruction Still Shapes American Racism; Vox, How Hillary Clinton got on the wrong side of liberals' changing theory of American history; History, The Perils and Promise of America’s Third Reconstruction; History, Reconstruction; History, The Great Migration.