About five months after I was born the Fourteenth Amendment, that made former enslaved persons citizens of the United States, was ratified. And within the next two years the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified. That gave the former slaves the right to vote.

As a result, during the period called "Reconstruction," The South sent two Black senators to Washington, D.C. and twenty Black members to the House of Representative.

Most of the people in Great Barrington applauded, what seemed at the time, evidence of racial uplift and progress. The nation had biracial state legislatures and seemed to be experiencing bipartisan political wisdom.

That "Reconstruction" period lasted until I was about eight years old. them.