so I'm doing a writing assignment and I watched John green's video on the matter but the gist I got was that the presidential reconstruction just resulted in an all white government that didn't really help reconstruct the south, and that the radical reconstruction just allowed for a republican takeover and the spread of human rights for black people. I don't really feel like either of these were key components, and I'm not Shure if the the presidential reconstruction actually reconstructed anything. Any advice? articles to read? videos to watch?
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The Society for US Intellectual History has a handy bibliographybibliography they compiled after the issue came up in a prior presidential election. If you had more time and a longer paper, I’d point you to some of the books, but check out a few of the collections that include essays.
Pulitzer-Prize winning historian Lawrence H. Gipson has an article from 1915 that has a few interesting takes that may also help you: The Statesmanship of President Johnson: A Study of the Presidential Reconstruction Policy Lawrence H. Gipson The Mississippi Valley Historical Review The Mississippi Valley Historical Review Vol. 2, No. 3 (Dec., 1915), pp. 363-383. It is on JSTOR.