Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's pending promotion sheds new light on his overlooked fight for equal rights after the Civil War
Published in News & Features
Grant saw his role of enforcing these policies as an extension of his wartime duty and necessary to protect the gains of the Union victory, especially the newly established rights for African Americans.
He used the resources of the federal government to crush the Ku Klux Klan, established the Department of Justice to investigate civil rights abuses and signed the Civil Rights Act of 1875.
In recent years, the American public has questioned the Lost Cause and taken steps to mitigate its pervasiveness throughout the U.S.
Southerners themselves have chosen to remove Confederate leaders from town squares and state flags. The U.S. Army has established a Naming Commission to rebrand Confederate-named bases.
It is telling, too, that Grant’s Presidential Library is now located in Mississippi, a Deep South state he once conquered.
It remains to be seen whether the request made to elevate Grant’s rank by U.S. Senators Sherrod Brown of Ohio, a Democrat, and Roy Blunt of Missouri, a Republican – along with GOP U.S Rep. Ann Wagner – will be finally approved by Congress as part of the FY2023 National Defense Authorization Act.
Either way, in my view, a thoughtful reconsideration of Grant’s wartime and post-war contributions is long overdue.
This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Anne Marshall, Mississippi State University. Like this article? subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Read more:
US moves to rename Army bases honoring Confederate generals who fought to defend slavery
US Congress could use Reconstruction-era civil rights powers to protect black lives today
Anne Marshall is affiliated with Ulysses S. Grant Association
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