Here's Where It Gets Interesting - I Saw Death Coming by Kidada Williams

Episode Date: February 22, 2023

On today’s episode of Here’s Where It Gets Interesting, Sharon welcomes guest Dr. Kidada Williams, author of the book, I Saw Death Coming. Dr. Williams shares her expertise on a complex period of U.S. history that's regularly distilled down to its simplest policy highlights: Reconstruction. She digs further, and speaks to the daily challenges and realities of the Reconstruction Era for Black Americans. Thank you to our guest, Kidada Williams. Hosted by: Sharon McMahon Guest: Kidada Williams Executive Producer: Heather Jackson Audio Producer: Jenny Snyder Researcher: Valerie Hoback Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, friends. Welcome. So delighted that you're with me today. And we are going to be talking about a time period in United States history that most students have a very slight amount of education on that many Americans have a very poor understanding of. And that is the time period of Reconstruction after the Civil War. is the time period of Reconstruction after the Civil War. And the time period of Reconstruction is still dramatically impacting us today. And so my conversation with Dr. Kidada Williams about her book, I Saw Death Coming, I think is going to be very illuminating. So let's dive in. I'm Sharon McMahon, and here's where it gets interesting.

I am honored to be speaking with Dr. Kidado-Williams today. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure. Mm-hmm. I read with great interest your new book, I Saw Death Coming. And first of all, it is very aptly titled. You immediately understand why it's called that, but also the title is very, you know, I immediately had my interest piqued about what this book was about.

And then when I learned more, I just have so many questions and so many takeaways from this book. So I'm really excited to dive into this conversation. Great. I'm excited to be here. Let's start by talking about the concept of reconstruction. Many Americans think we had the Civil War and all the laws were fixed and the problems were corrected. And this is a specific historic time period that you are writing about. So can you give us a very brief overview of what even is the Reconstruction period in the United States? So the Reconstruction period is this huge process by which the United States tried to recover from the Civil War. And so there are a lot of moving parts in it.

You know, how do you return the seceded states back into the union fold? How do you punish the ex-Confederates for taking the country into a bloody war? And how do you figure out the process to transition from slavery to freedom? And then what becomes of the rights of African-Americans? All of that stuff is not yet settled. And Reconstruction is this multi-year process by which the country tries to come to terms with what happened and try to move forward. And it's so true that when these subjects are taught in high school setting and undergraduate U.S. history course setting, we study them almost exclusively from the perspectives of the policies that were created by Andrew Johnson, the president at the time, or by certain members of Congress. We sort of academically divide this Reconstruction period up into Congressional Reconstruction and Presidential Reconstruction.

And our viewpoint is very centered on what were the policies of the United States government. And you realized that there was another side to this story, important aspects of this story that were being lost. And I would love to hear you tell us more about what those are. One of the things that often happens in K-12 and sometimes in college is that Reconstruction gets short shrift. It's at the end of the first part of the U.S. History Survey and at the beginning of the second part of the U.S. History Survey. And so if it's at the end, then you've spent all of your time on the colonial period, the American Revolution, on the Civil War. And so there's hardly any time for Reconstruction. So you just get those little sound bites like you described. And if it's at the beginning of the second part of the U.S. History Survey, you have to go from

1877 to the present day. And so because you've got more than a century to cover, you spend a little time on Reconstruction just to sort of barrel forward to move ahead. So we don't get that much history on Reconstruction, or we get a really dated problematic history, which is that it failed. So there's this whole failure narrative of the Civil War that's actually tied to the lost cause narrative that ex-Confederates created to justify secession after the Civil War. There is a reconstruction component to that story. And the reconstruction component is that it failed. And so what that narrative means is that, you know, no one comes out and says it, but

what they really mean is that Black people were freed from slavery. They were given every possible chance to succeed. And then they failed to make the most of freedom. And so that's the lie the ex-Confederates told after they managed to overthrow it. And I grew up learning that story in K-12. And what's curious is that my students are still getting that story in K-12 today. The historical records reveal something a lot more complicated, especially when you look at what happened to people on the ground, specifically for my interest in that transition from slavery to freedom. So African Americans, they seize freedom during the war,

they make freedom real afterwards, and they make the most of it. They do all of these wonderful things. They reunite their families, they get churches, they get schools, they establish their own businesses. They acquire land. They're doing all of these amazing things. And they're voting and they're serving in office. And what happens is that the former enslaving class, those Confederates, they target them.

In those very places where Black people are making freedom real. And so they attack them. They hold them hostage. There are mass assassinations of elected officials and voters. And so the story that I tell in the book is I challenge this narrative of Reconstruction failing, and I sort of underscore the ways that white Southerners overthrew it and that the rest of the nation let them. And I do that by using survivors' testimonies before Congress about what happened to them. And the narrative that drives the book,

first of all, is very compelling. The book is beautifully written, such a compelling read. So this is a weighty topic that you tackle really, really beautifully and then it comes with a compelling narrative. I had aspects of things that I wanted to talk about beginning immediately. And here's one of the things that I would love to hear you talk a little bit more about. I'm just going to read a little excerpt here, and then I'd love to hear your thoughts

on this. You say, in 1865, retired U.S. Army General Carl Schurz advised Americans against indulging in any delusions about the real state of affairs in the South. But some white Northerners and Westerners were content to be deluded. And by the way, that is still the truth about Americans. They are content to be deluded. I'm just saying. They were exhausted from the war, grateful for peace, and not having experienced the obscenity of slavery themselves, ignorant of the true depths of enslavers' capacity for depravity. And I think that this pervasive narrative that you're talking about, by the way, it is absolutely correct. As a longtime teacher, Reconst reconstruction comes either at the end of semester one, like you're heading into

that winter break, man, just cram it in there. So totally agree there's a lack of education on this time period. But I also think the exact thing that you mentioned in the very beginning of your book is still true today that Americans, not having experienced the obscenity of slavery themselves, were ignorant to the true depths of the enslaver's capacity for depravity. Let's start by talking about then. Let's talk about America in 1865. What were Northerners completely ignorant of and why were they ignorant of it? bondage. And so they're not aware of the fact that to hold someone hostage against their will requires unspeakable and unthinkable violence. As human beings, we don't surrender our freedom easily. We fight. We resist a lot. And enslaved Americans did that on a daily basis. And so Americans did that on a daily basis. And so, enslavers respond in kind with this obscene violence, and they'll do whatever it takes. The big difference is that when the Civil War comes and slavery is abolished, African Americans' economic value to the enslaving class, free

African Americans' economic value to the enslaving class dissipates. So whereas they may punish someone to preserve a life during slavery, they will take that life in the war on freedom afterwards. And so what I think a lot of white Northerners and Westerners were ignorant of is the sort of violence that is used to hold people in bondage. And so I think they are ignorant of that. I also think they're ignorant of the reality that enslavers weren't just going to let slavery go easily. And that's the point that DeGeneres was sort of making. What he says is that they are expressing their desire for peace. They have formally laid down their arms against the government of the United States. But that mindset of their determination to hold Black people in bondage is still there.

And we need to know that. We need to be aware of that. And so what I think a lot of white Northerners and Westerners believe was that, well, slavery is over. We're going to have the 13th Amendment, and everyone's going to respect the law. But laws don't enforce themselves. They never did. And so they're not really paying close attention to the former enslaving class's determination to hold on to slavery. And so some of the violence comes very early on, and that's what the general is observing. Like what enslavers are doing to try to hold on to the people they held in bondage, and that's what the general is observing. Like, what enslavers are doing to try to hold on to the people they held in bondage, and how they are punishing them, those who managed

to escape. I mean, the very fact that people have to escape is a testament to the fact that enslavers are not respecting the law, that they are continuing to hold on to people in bondage, and that Black people are resisting because they know the law. They know that they are legally free. It's such an important point that you make early on in the book that once Reconstruction began and the Civil War ended and African Americans were legally free, they lost their economic value to their enslavers. And so consequently, there was no incentive to keep them alive, so to speak. There was every incentive to enact violence on them in an effort to gain their compliance with what it was that they wanted, which was to steal the labor, the free labor, and to perpetuate the white supremacy that so greatly benefited them.

Right. And one of the other points is that it's not as though they can't get the labor because they need the labor. They desperately need the labor after the war. And it's not as though, you know, newly freed Black people were just chilling, right? They needed jobs to take care of themselves. They needed jobs, yeah. They didn't have a vast personal fortune on which to just coast. They literally needed a job. Exactly. They're starting over from scratch, and they're willing to work, and they're willing to work in awful circumstances. But they do insist on being paid for their labor, right? And they will leave someone who will not pay them for their labor, or they will leave the employment of someone

who can't let go of slavery. And so they're experiencing a lot of the violence when they are trying to leave and find employment elsewhere. And the change in the value of Black people's lives in white people's minds, white Southerners' minds after the Civil War, results in thousands of deaths. You know, it's to the point where there are different points where federal officials, they say, we can't, we don't know how many because there are too many to count. And I think that a lot of white Northerners were in denial about that, or they just said, well, you know, what do we expect? White Southerners, ex-Confederates are going to be upset about losing their good thing of chattel slavery. So this is all normal. And they didn't really support efforts or even African-Americans' requests to do more to protect their lives. And so, you know, the arguments that I make about reconstructions,

overthrow, and abandonment come from the fact that if anyone was in a position to hold ex-Confederates accountable for the violence, it was white Northerners and Westerners. And they're aware of the violence, but they choose not to do anything about it. Even though there are legal methods, there are laws that will enable federal officials to enforce the 14th Amendment, equal protection under the law clause and the due process clause. But there isn't the incentive to enforce it, especially in the South where this violence is occurring. To whom do you pin most of the responsibility for that? Is it Andrew Johnson? He just wants to get this over with. He doesn't want to deal with the day-to-day. Can't you guys just pass a new constitution and just say that you're going to fix it and just get back into the union? Do you pin it mostly on him, or do you have another person or group that you would say was primarily responsible for

the failure to uphold the existing laws? That's a great question. In this case, I don't think many get off clean. So I would say it's the president, it's the Congress, it's the Supreme Court, and it's the citizens who elected them into office. So it's not just one, because if it was just Johnson, then members of Congress could have stepped up. If it was just members of Congress, then the Supreme Court could have stepped up. They didn't do that. And we know one of the reasons they didn't do that is because Northerners and

Westerners, for the most part, only begrudgingly accepted emancipation. And they only did that to end the war quickly. There is the lost cause that Southerners produced after the Civil War. Northerners, in particular, create their own version, and it's this sort of abolitionist cause, where suddenly they're all abolitionists, right? And if all Northerners had been abolitionists, then they could have abolished slavery at any time before the war. But that's not who they were. And what we see, even with the Reconstruction Amendments, those amendments barely make it into law, and that's with the seceded states out of the Union. So that's a

testament. That's a testament to how much frustration there is. And for a lot of Northerners and Westerners, they think that the end of slavery is just going to mean that Black people are going to be released from bondage. And they are concerned, put that in scare quotes, they are concerned about the possibility of equal rights. They are concerned about Black people voting. In short, the vast majority of white Northerners and Westerners don't want to share the American pie, right? And so for a lot of them, the violence happening in the South is kind of a, oh, well, you know, they sort of throw up their hands because they aren't engaged in the active targeting and killing of Black people, but they share some of the same views about Black people and Black people wanting to be equal, free, and secure in the United States as white Southerners.

I'm Jenna Fisher. And I'm Angela Kinsey. We are best friends, and together we have the podcast Office Ladies, where we rewatched every single episode of The Office with insane behind-the-scenes stories, hilarious guests, and lots of laughs. Guess who's sitting next to me? Steve! It is my girl in the studio! Every Wednesday, we'll be sharing even more exclusive stories from The Office and our friendship with brand new guests.

And we'll be digging into our mailbag to answer your questions and comments. So join us for brand new Office Ladies 6.0 episodes every Wednesday. Plus, on Mondays, we are taking a second drink. You can revisit all the Office Ladies rewatch episodes every Monday with new bonus tidbits before every episode. Well, we can't wait to see you there. Follow and listen to Office Ladies on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts. It's very easy to make it a theoretical problem

or to blame it on, you know, like, listen, we live up here. Y'all are going to have to deal with your own stuff down there. It's very easy to dismiss something that's not literally happening in your backyard. our education on Reconstruction is so slim, which is this belief that the United States voted to include the 13th, 14th, 15th Amendments in the Constitution. And thus, it represented a sea change in the overall mentality of the nation. But what people don't get any education on is that the Southern states who believed they had seceded, although they didn't really secede, they believed they had seceded, didn't get to vote on that. They didn't get to vote on whether or not those were going to be included. And so when the states that were main in the union voted on it, as you just mentioned, it was a tight squeeze. It was not an overwhelming 95% of Northerners were like, bring it on. That was not the mentality. So we have this mindset

that, well, America changed. We saw the light. Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and he was a fantastic guy, and everyone wanted to follow him, and he helped us see how wrong enslavement was. That is the popular narrative that is taught. issue, a conversation for another day perhaps. But it's an important point that you make that a lot of people's minds were not changed. And a lot of people did not wholeheartedly embrace abolition. They gave tacit approval to the end of enslavement because they didn't believe it affected them and because they wanted the war to end. Exactly. But I also think that we do have to acknowledge those people like Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens and, you know, those states that did pass or did vote in favor of the amendments, even if they did it half-heartedly, you know, for African-Americans in the South, they would have taken it. Coming out of slavery, yes, absolutely, we will take it, even if you don't like to do it. So I do think we need to

acknowledge that this was a truly transformative moment. I agree with Eric Foner in his characterization of it as the second founding. But I think if we understand the complexity of white Northern and Western thought, then Reconstruction's overthrow and abandonment makes a lot more sense. Like, I often encourage teachers, I say, figure out, especially those who live in the North and the West, where did your state actually come down on the Reconstruction amendments? And what were the conversations like? And I give them that charge because I know a lot of them will be surprised.

You know, they'll be surprised that California was like, we don't know about the 13th Amendment. Not because they wanted chattel, racial chattel slavery to continue, but because they wanted to hold on to systems of unfreedom they had for Chinese Americans, the Native Americans, Pacific Island Americans, Mexican Americans, they've got all of these other systems of unfree labor out there that they want to hold on to. There are other northern and western states that are saying in response to the 15th Amendment, we didn't secede from the union, so. It's not on us. Is this amendment going to, exactly, is this amendment going to apply to us? We don't think it should apply to us because we didn't succeed. And so that kind of mindset, I think, when people understand that history, they have a better understanding of the country that we live in today and why the history of Reconstruction unfolded the way that it did. Because there is so much resistance. There is so much doubt. There is so much questioning. There is so much of Virginia that was like, we'll just close for five years.

We're not integrating. We're just not doing that. And that it took in some places over a decade for people to begin following the law. So changing the law is not enough if there is no muscle behind enforcing the law. And even, you know, they write this Southern Manifesto and they have these lapel buttons that say never. And they're very clear on this never. What I see happening when people understand this more complex history of Reconstruction and even the Civil Rights Movement, the world we live in today makes more sense to them. They can understand why we are exactly here. They can't really understand it. They can't understand what happened if they don't have a clear understanding of these earlier moments. But once they do, the history up until this point where we live right now makes more

sense. And that's part of why this history matters, why getting the history right matters. You have a better understanding of the world we live in and what it takes to bring about truly transformative change. Fantastic point. What it takes to actually bring about change because passing one law isn't enough. One Supreme Court decision isn't enough. passing one law isn't enough. One Supreme Court decision isn't enough. And learning this history helps us better understand what does it actually take to change. You see some of the echoes of this time period when you see them echoed into the 1950s, and you see them echoed today even

when you are looking at the fight for school vouchers, for example, of tax money should be able to go to any private institution. That is a direct result of Brown v. Bort. That is when school vouchers got started. We don't want to integrate schools, so we will just give white parents only a tuition voucher to send their child to the segregated religious school of their choice. And a lot of people don't like to hear me talk about this, but we're not going to build pride on a lie here. You know what I mean? They don't like to hear me say that it was religious schools that were upholding segregation. It was not the public schools that were, and they decided to close. The way around it was private religious institutions.

Exactly. Who were like, fine, we'll have a whites-only school. It's precisely the same thing that is happening today, just in a different way of couching the argument. I think part of what happens is that there is a tendency to speak in code. And if you don't know the code, then you completely miss it. But if you know the code, you cannot unhear it. You know exactly the moves that are being made and the language that's being used to sort of put lipstick on this pig. And underneath it is still the pig. But what, you know, what I try to do is to enlighten my students

and the larger public to see the pig so that no matter what the dress looks like, or, you know, even if maybe if the pig analogy is inappropriate, you know, that it's the same old snake, but in a new skin. And so, you know, helping people see that it's the same old snake, right? It's, you know, it's got a new skin, it's got a new shiny skin. And it may have thrown some earrings on and a blonde wig, but it is still that snake underneath there. And we need to know that. And that's the only way people who believe in freedom and justice will sort of remember the fight that they need to sort of play a role in, in terms of protecting the rights and freedoms of everyone. That is the benefit of this type of education is you learn the code. It is really, really difficult

to unknow those things. It's really difficult to unring that bell. Absolutely. Well, your book, the subtitle of the book is A History of Terror and Survival in the War Against Reconstruction. And we've spoken quite a bit about some of the aspects of terror, the violence that was very prevalent, clan activity. And you also mentioned in your book how you didn't even have to be a member of the clan. You could just be your own homegrown racist, but people would assume you were part of the clan because you were doing the same kinds of things as everybody else. But what I would love to hear you talk more about is the aspects of your book

where you are talking about the history of survival in the war against Reconstruction, because that is another huge component that the American public doesn't know about. So one of the, I think, most amazing aspects of this history is the fact that we can write it using the accounts of survivors, people who lived through this violence and who were brave enough to report it. They reported it to local authorities. They reported it to federal officials. They reported it to members of Congress when they testified

at what we call the Klan hearings. And what's really revealing in those stories is that a lot of historians have often used those records to establish the fact of election violence. So we know that voters were targeted. We know that office holders were assassinated. And we know that in part from these records. But the records are actually really much more complex. They're much more illuminating of what African Americans gained during freedom and then what they lost and what they were in the process of losing to violence when they testified. with survival strategies. How do you survive a Klan attack, which is very much like a domestic invasion today or a home invasion today? How do you account for all of the people in your family? All of these factors come into play during a home invasion, which is what those Klan raids were. And so what's very clear from the testimonies is that survivors are making decisions about how to survive from one moment of an attack to the next and the next and the next. And sometimes people are overwhelmed by

the circumstances of being held hostage and they lose a sense of their agency and they experience paralytic fright and they simply can't do anything because they freeze and they shut down. And some people are not even able to do that because they're so overwhelmed by what happened to them. And once they live through attacks, they have to begin the process of figuring out, are they really safe? And if not, how do they get safe? And how do they start over? And a lot of times people, they have to start over completely from scratch. And this is a time where we don't have an Americans with Disabilities Act. You know, we don't have the resources where we don't necessarily have fully formed understandings of trauma and the mental and emotional support that survivors of horrific violence need. And so a lot of people are on their own.

violence need. And so a lot of people are on their own. But what's really interesting in the testimonies is that even though they don't have the language of trauma that we use today, they're very clear in how they and their lives have been changed by what's happened to them. This is another area that I feel more Americans need to have illuminated for them is the manner and speed with which African Americans who had been freed after the Civil War, the manner and speed at which they created lives for themselves and thriving communities. And of course, that came at great cost. But they quickly ran for office. They quickly worked to register their friends and neighbors to vote. They quickly took great care to try to vote, great opportunity costs, missing a day's wages for many people, being denied the ballot. They were still determined not just to survive the day, but to create beautiful communities

for themselves. And that is also very much lost in the narrative of what happens during Reconstruction and immediately afterwards. Do you agree? I agree. And I think it's important to acknowledge all of the things you just listed is part of Reconstruction II. So how is that a failure is a question we need to be asking people. But I think more specifically, African Americans picked themselves up from slavery. No one has spent more time thinking about freedom, about the possibilities of freedom, about taking care of one's family, about acquiring land. No one spent more time thinking about that than the people who were enslaved. People for the period of their enslavement who are forced to sit outside the circle of freedom. They've been thinking about it. And so when they get the opportunity, they seize it

and they make the absolute most of it. They are willing to work. Obviously, their labor had been stolen for all of their lives, but they work harder for themselves than they did for the people who held them in bondage. And so many people thrive. And they are thriving. They are doing so well in freedom that that is why they are targeted. When we look at who's targeted, what we see is that these are landowners. They are workers. They are family people who are trying to protect the integrity of their families. They're doing everything they're supposed to do. They're doing everything

federal officials instructed them to do. They were doing all of those things. And for them to be targeted for doing what they're supposed to do was all the more crushing. But they were doing it because they really believed in America. They really believed in freedom, liberty, and democracy. And they really believed in protecting their families and securing their family's futures. You know, this is a story about Reconstruction told through the families of African Americans who are targeted in the war on freedom. So it's a really family-centered story. And it's family-centered because African-Americans put so much into family. For many of them, family was a critical part of their freedom. Even people who managed to escape before or during the Civil War, many of them felt that they weren't truly free unless all of their family members were free, too.

And so they are working together to build family, to build community, to provide everything they need. So after people are targeted, they have to rebuild. They have to start this process anew to try to move on and forward to recover what they lost. lost. He brought up two really great points that I wanted to touch on. One is that people who were formerly enslaved and were freed believed wholeheartedly in democracy. And I would argue that nobody had more faith in democracy than the people who were willing to literally risk their lives to vote. Nobody believes in democracy more. It is a testament to the belief in America itself that people were willing to go to those lengths to participate in democracy. And that,

I think, is very worth highlighting. It is, because they've seen how America works. You know, they understand the possibilities, and they understand the promise. And they also recognize how they have been shut out. You know, for a lot of free African Americans who were free before the war, there is a refusal to leave the United States. You know, they say, no, we were with you when you first arrived on these shores. We've been with you and we will be with you to the end. Because they recognize the promise. And what they want and what they believe the nation should do is make good on those promises.

Make good on the promises of the founding, make good on the promises of the Declaration of Independence for everyone. And they see during Reconstruction this moment where the nation is, you know, at least appears to be making good on all of these promises. And so that's why they rush to make the most of it. And so many's why they rushed to make the most of it. And so many do well. Enslaved people who were skilled laborers, they leave slavery and they hang a shingle the next day. And they're taking care of themselves and they're taking care of their families. They want to vote.

And they don't just want to vote. They want to serve in office. They want to play a role in establishing policy for themselves and people in their community. If that isn't somebody who is trying to grasp the American dream, what is? I don't think we can overlook how much people truly believed in and wanted democracy for themselves in ways that many Americans today would not. Exactly. And I think what we see from the Confederates who target them is a very clear argument that this is not for you. You don't have a right to any of these rights. You don't have a right to this freedom. You don't have a right to American

democracy. You don't have a right to equality. And in some cases, you don't have a right to life, even if you resist our insistence that you accept a lower place in society. Visible success often made people a target. And you can see that in events like the Tulsa Race Massacre and in other similar events that happened around the country, although the Tulsa Race Massacre, and in other similar events that happened around the country, although the Tulsa Race Massacre is very easy to see exactly what happened, where African Americans were experiencing high degrees of success, owning beautiful homes. Many of them were beautiful homes by today's standards, and very visible, obvious success in a predominantly African-American neighborhood with dozens of businesses, churches, schools, hospitals, banks, jewelry stores, things that were obvious signs of success. And that visible success is in part what made them a target, put a target on their back, a resentment of the visible success. Exactly. And when you think about it,

for white supremacists, that African Americans could achieve that success. In such a short period of time. Exactly.hmm. In such a short period of time. Exactly. Not only in such a short period of time, but in spite of all of the barriers that were erected to deny them their ability to transcend slavery, for white supremacists, you know, it's galling, right? We have established all of these barriers to deny Black people success, to deny them access to democracy, to deny them equality. And they still manage to create these kinds of communities. We just marked the 100th anniversary of Rosewood. You've got Tulsa, you've got Rosewood, you've got East St. Louis, and these other episodes where what you see is what the scholar Corita Mitchell calls know-your-place aggression, right? And it's directed specifically at Black and brown people.

It is know your place. Your place is not as a business owner. Your place is not as a voter, as a lawmaker, or as a student at a decent school. That is not your place. That is not the place that we have determined for you in this society. And so what they do is they attack it and they destroy everything African-Americans build. And the whole purpose is to leave them with nothing. I would love for you to tell listeners, what is it that you hope after they read your beautiful work of scholarship, I Saw Death Coming, what is it that you hope they take away? What is it you hope they tell their children across

the dinner table? What I would love for them to take from this book is a very clear understanding of the fight ahead of us. And what I mean by that is if readers really believe in liberty, freedom, and democracy and justice, then they will step forward into the fights for justice today with the understanding that they gain from a book like mine about how devastating this violence is and what we need to do in order to end it. I love that. Because we have to learn from history. Because if we only are operating on the set of facts before us today, we don't have a clear understanding of how we got here and what it takes to create meaningful, lasting change, as you previously mentioned. If we just think, well, we just need a new law, as this book demonstrates and as you

just said, that's not enough. That's not what it's going to take. We have to be able to understand where we came from in order to be able to set a vision and an intention for where we need to go. Exactly. Thank you so much for being here today. I loved this book and I loved speaking with you. I enjoyed this conversation so much.

Thank you for having me. My pleasure. I really think you're going to enjoy learning more about the reconstruction time period in the United States from the perspective of people who experienced it. Dr. Kidada-Williams' book is called I Saw Death Coming, A History of Terror and Survival in the War Against Reconstruction. And you can also check out her Seizing Freedom

podcast. You can go to the website seizingfreedom.vpm.org. Thanks for being here. Thank you for listening to Hearer's Work. It's interesting. This show is written and researched by Heather Jackson, Sharon McMahon, Valerie Hoback, and Amy Watkin, edited and mixed by our audio producer, Jenny Snyder, and is hosted by me, Sharon McMahon. We'll see you again soon. you