Thread by @TheCivilWarDoc1

"Sectional feeling no longer holds back the love we feel for each other. The old flag again waves over us in peace with new glories.” Those words were spoken by #President #McKinley during a speech in #Atlanta #OTD in 1898 only four days after the end of the Spanish American War.

By 1898, the #LostCause narrative of the #CivilWar had made much headway in the minds of white Americans, North and South. The #JimCrow South was emerging by the late 19th century and was accompanied by a tidal wave of white supremacist terrorism.

McKinley's message of reunion was only meant for white Americans. Only a month earlier white terrorists violently overthrew #Wilmington, #NorthCarolina's biracial government, killing hundreds of Black Wilmingtonians in the process.

ncdcr.gov/1898-wilmingto…

In his book "Race and Reunion," historian @davidwblight1 argues that the #SpanishAmericanWar strengthened the unity between Northern and Southern whites at the expense of Black civil rights and the emancipationist narrative of the Civil War.

According to Blight, the Spanish American War thrust the US onto the world stage, creating notions of racialized #imperialism abroad that reinforced racist policies and ideas at home.

For more listen to historian Caroline Janney's presentation "The Civil War, the Spanish American War and (the limits of) national reconciliation" @cspanhistory
c-span.org/video/?404846-…

Janney talks about how "the Spanish-American War in 1898 bonded former white Confederates and Unionists into one national army, helping to reunite the country."

"But, she said this reunion came with restrictions that denied equality for African-American soldiers, a division mirrored in American society at-large."