Series

Slavery and the Civil War

One hundred and fifty years ago, the institution of slavery was finally destroyed with the end of the Civil War. Socialist Worker writers tell the story.

Lance Selfa

Slavery and the roots of racism

The American Civil War ended 150 years ago, and with it, the system of slavery that built the U.S.--and world capitalism.

April 9, 2015
Alan Maass

The resistance to history’s enormous crime

The history of slavery is also a history of resistance and of the revolutionary overthrow of an entrenched system.

April 13, 2015
Alan Maass

The road to the Civil War

The North and South were on a collision course, but the shape and timing of the conflict depended on political questions.

April 15, 2015
Donny Schraffenberger and Alan Maass

To save the Union or to free the slaves?

A war against slaveholders had to be transformed into a war against slavery for the North to win the Civil War.

April 27, 2015
Donny Schraffenberger and Alan Maass

The Civil War becomes a revolutionary war

For the North to defeat the Southern Confederacy, the Union Army had to be transformed into an army of liberation.

May 5, 2015
Bill Mullen

Reconstruction after the war

The formal emancipation of slaves after the Civil War constituted a significant but incomplete advance for the working class.

May 7, 2015