We Were Eight Years in Power

The title of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ book, “We Were Eight Years in Power,” is inspired by the 1895 speech of South Carolina congressman, Thomas Miller, in his unsuccessful appeal to the state’s constitutional convention to maintain the newly recognized citizenship rights of African Americans.  What similarities, if any, do you identify in the periods immediately following the Reconstruction Era and the election of our nation’s first Black President? To aid you in your interrogation of these eras, I am providing several notable court cases that are illustrative of each period.

Reconstruction/Post-Reconstruction Era

• United States v. Reese (1875)

• United States v. Cruikshank (1876)

• Strauder v. West Virginia (1880)

• Ex parte Virginia (1880)

• Virginia v. Reeves (1880)

• The Civil Rights Cases (1883)

• Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

• Williams v. Mississippi (1898)

• Cumming v. Richmond County Board of Education (1899)

 Obama/Post-Obama Period

• Citizens United v. FEC (2010)

• Shelby County v. Holder (2013)

• Veasey et. al. v. Perry et. al. (2015)

• Fisher v. University of Texas (2016)

Course Material:

• Read Coates Introduction, Chapters 1-4

• With the PBS Documentary, “Dreams of Obama”

Video: