what does the term "long night" mean in history?

Question

i believe this term was used during the reconstruction time or after

Answer 1

Hi Smiley Face,

The term "Long Night" refers to an extended period of confusion and bad times. In the period of Reconstruction, it refers to the fact that African-Americans were thrown back into a world of prejudice and the absense of civil rights. Slavery was officially over, but black Americans now had to endure the Long Night of continued oppression under the Jim Crow laws that did not abate until the "dawn" of the Civil Rights movement in the mid-twentieth century.

Answer 2

Long Night is a term describing, originally, the Greek god Zeus' habit of darkening the sky when seducing women so that his wife, Hera, wouldn't see. He used this technique in the seduction of Io and Alcmene. It is also present in William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Answer 3

"Long night" means simply that a long period of darkness descended before "light" shown on the civilization--one can imagine the light as "enlightenment."