Product Description

Despite common belief the Civil War does not end in 1865 and the blood of many Americans mostly blacks continues to flow freely. It is a period known as "Reconstruction" a time many consider to be the darkest in American History. America is supposed to be reuniting healing its wounds and moving past civil discord. But by examining what is really going on in the post-Civil War South one can see snapshots of a larger more menacing picture a picture shadowed by murder terrorism and chaos as "free" black men and women remain enslaved by a South that does not completely surrender. Insurgencies led by disgruntled ex-Confederate soldiers rip through nearly every southern state. America's first terrorist group the Ku Klux Klan is formed in Tennessee and uses scare tactics and murder to keep blacks down.Run Time: 90 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DOCUMENTARIES/MISC. Rating: NR UPC: 733961770179 Manufacturer No: AAE-77017

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17759 in DVD
• Brand: A&E HOME ENT.
• Released on: 2007-04-24
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 90 minutes

Features

• Despite common belief, the Civil War does not end in 1865, and the blood of many Americans, mostly blacks, continues to flow freely. It is a period known as "Reconstruction," a time many consider to be the darkest in American History. America is supposed to be reuniting, healing its wounds, and moving past civil discord. But by examining what is really going on in the post-Civil War South,

Customer Reviews

H.S. History Teacher on Aftershock
With societies, as with individuals, it is often much easier for us to examine the mistakes of others than it is to take an honest look at our own. In both cases, however, honest examination is essential to making genuine progress. Aftershock succeeds in providing us with details on a topic of which most Gone-With-the-Wind-watching Americans are unaware: the atrocious violence and frequent chaos that followed Lee's surrender.

Anyone who has actually studied slavery and the slave trade as they existed in America (as opposed to simply treating them as unavoidable footnotes in U.S. history) is well-aware that it is difficult to fathom the cost of those institutions in human life, considering the shortened life spans, high morbidity rates, high infant mortality rates, etc., of those affected. On the other hand, we are aware of the literally millions who perished (some through intentional killings) in the Middle Passage and the 620 thousand Americans who died in the Civil War.

With all of the above in mind, we might be tempted to minimize the significance of the bloodshed that occurred during the Reconstruction era and the entire century of strife that followed the war; Aftershock, however, does an outstanding job of illustrating the former. This film tells the stories of a variety of individuals and organizations, including the Arkansas National Guard; ex-Confederate soldiers; state officials; African American troops; displaced Southern civilians; and one of our nation's oldest homegrown terrorist groups, the Ku Klux Klan. It also devotes a few (though far from enough) moments to the often overlooked role of Native Americans in the post-war years. It even touches on the frustration that some government officials felt with Andrew Johnson's calamitous approach to the nation's troubles.

This is one of the few documentaries on the years immediately following the war that I would consider incorporating into a larger class project.

Reconstruction reconsidered
This DVD from the history channel is well done. It highlights some of the outstanding events of reconstruction after the Civil War including the founding of the KKK. It makes the point grahphically that while the North won the Civil War, the South won the period of Reconstruction. It is essential to understand this period of time in order to understand subsequent American History.

Really Harsh, like the History
Aftershock: Beyond the Civil War depicts a very harsh, tense, and bloody reality in America after the South surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse. It covers the rise and decline of the Ku Klux Klan in some detail, as well as the massacre in New Orleans. I showed it to inner-city Middle school students as part of our unit on the Reconstruction. It is definitely not for the faint of heart, because it depicts a woman and her children being whipped and uses accurate historical profanity. It is a rough movie, but so is American history during this time period.