Reconstruction era removed civilian governments in the South, and placed the former Confederacy under the rule of the U.S. Army. The army conducted new elections in which the freed slaves could vote, while whites who had held leading positions under the Confederacy were temporarily denied the vote and were not permitted to run for office. In ten states, coalitions of freedmen, recent black and white arrivals from the North (carpetbaggers), and white Southerners who supported Reconstruction (scalawags) cooperated to form Republican biracial state governments. They introduced various reconstruction programs including: funding public schools, establishing charitable institutions, raising taxes, and funding public improvements
The Call to Poetry The Call to Poetry The Call to Poetry was a one-night performance art / international poetry gathering event held April 5, 2012 in Istanbul, near Taksim Square, widely promoted and heavily attended by international poets to celebrate the history of poetry with a dramatic reading of the world’s oldest love poem, which is housed in the Istanbul Archaeology Museums. The Call to Poetry garnered significant interest in Istanbul, the greater Middle East and the US, as did a portion of the evening dedicated to poetry of the Arab Spring. Written on a 4,000-year-old clay tablet known as İstanbul #2461, the