CSPAN3 American Artifacts August 19, 2016
Selection of artifacts from the house collection. The story of how africanamericans come to congress in the 19th century is not one that a lot of people are familiar with. We actually had 22 africanamericans serve between 1870 and 1901. 20 in the house, 2 in the senate, largely a house story. And it has to do with the role of congress during the civil war, and in the decade after. During the civil war there were a group of radicals in congress, radicals because they believed in the equality of africanamericans and wanted to create a society in the south after the war that was a multiracial soc...