Part Two of Two: After Reconstruction. We looked at Reconstruction — that brief, fragile window between 1865 and 1870 when America attempted something radical: a multiracial democracy backed by federal law.

Three constitutional amendments. Black men voting. Black legislators shaping policy. Federal troops enforcing civil rights. For a moment, the nation leaned forward. Today, we’re talking about what happened when it leaned back. This episode is about retreat. About political bargains. About laws that wore polite language while carrying brutal consequences. And about how a new system of forced labor rose from the ashes of slavery.

We are looking the national reduction of protection for freed slaves after the civil war. From the Supreme Court chambers in D.C. to the mines of Birmingham, from the docks of San Francisco to the plains of the Lakota.

This is the timeline of how a nation redefined "we the people" to exclude almost everyone but a few. This time line of the past will lay the foundation of understanding of how our modern America came to be.

We’re stepping into one of the most misunderstood chapters in American history. Not the Civil War. Not slavery. But what came immediately after. A period known as Reconstruction.

From roughly 1865 to 1877, the United States attempted something it had never tried before: rebuilding a nation while redefining freedom, citizenship, and power — all at the same time.

For a brief moment, America stood at a crossroads. One road led toward true democracy. The other led back toward hierarchy, control, and exclusion.