Professor Postel's Book Recounts Post-Civil War Movements Focusing on Equality

C-SPAN2, BOOK TV -- San Francisco State University History Professor Charles Postel recounted the post-Civil War social movements that focused on racial equality.

“This period unleashed a tidal wave of claims for equality and equal rights in the United States,” he said at a reading of his new book “Equality: An American Dilemma, 1866 – 1896” at Bookshop West Portal in San Francisco on September 26.

“In their struggle, [African Americans] pushed the question of equality into the center of American life,” Postel added. “By 1868, we have the 14th Amendment, which for the first time in American history, we have the Constitution actually protecting equal rights in American society.”