In this episode, from our series on Teach the Black Freedom Struggle, our host, Prentiss Charney Fellow Jessica Rucker speaks with historian Kidada E. Williams about her 2023 book, I Saw Death Coming: A History of Terror and Survival in the War Against Reconstruction. The book offers a breakthrough account of the much-debated Reconstruction period, transporting readers into the daily existence of formerly enslaved people and the white supremacist terror they faced after emancipation. Drawing on a deep reading of the archives, Williams offers a revelatory and, in some cases, minute-by-minute record of nighttime raids and Ku Klux Klan strikes. And she deploys cutting-edge scholarship on trauma to consider how the effects of these attacks would linger for decades — indeed, generations — to come. Read about the event and find related resources.
People's Historians Podcast