What does this quote by W.E.B DuBois mean: "It was negro loyalty and the negro vote alone that restored the south to the union; established the new...

In 1929, the editors of the Encyclopedia Britannica asked W.E.B. DuBois, an African-American historian, to write an article on Reconstruction. In response, he wrote, "“it was Negro loyalty and the Negro vote alone that restored the South to the Union; established the new democracy, both for white and black, and instituted the public schools.”

DuBois intended his statement to be a correction to the standard idea among whites that African-American people had destroyed the process...

In 1929, the editors of the Encyclopedia Britannica asked W.E.B. DuBois, an African-American historian, to write an article on Reconstruction. In response, he wrote, "“it was Negro loyalty and the Negro vote alone that restored the South to the Union; established the new democracy, both for white and black, and instituted the public schools.”

DuBois intended his statement to be a correction to the standard idea among whites that African-American people had destroyed the process of Reconstruction and that they were to blame for its failures. Their failures were blamed on the corrupt alliance between southern African-American people and "carpetbaggers," or people from the north looking to profit from Reconstruction in the south. Many people regarded African-Americans as not up to the task of governing themselves after the Civil War.

DuBois, on the other hand, believed that African-Americans were critical in not only winning the Civil War but also in forming integrated state governments after the war that passed legislation that allowed the southern states to rejoin the union, expand voting rights, and set up public schools. His statement was intended to assert the idea that African-Americans were fully capable of governing themselves, despite what historians at the time (such as William Dunning) claimed about the inability of former slaves to carry out a successful agenda during Reconstruction. The editors of the encyclopedia asked DuBois to strike this passage from his article, but he instead withdrew the article and later wrote a history of Black Reconstruction.