Capitol Men.(Capitol Men: The Epic Story of Reconstruction through the Lives of the First BlackCongressmen)(Brief article)(Book review)

During Reconstruction, sixteen black men served as congressmen. They have been scorned as bumbling, corrupt, or ineffectual--former field hands in shiny suits--and even the growing recognition, in recent years, of the shamefulness of the North's abandonment of Reconstruction has not entirely effaced that caricature. Dray's book should do so. He tells the stories of Robert Smalls, who commandeered a Confederate ship and his own freedom; P. B. S. Pinchback, the consummate ...