Aim: How did ex-slaves start to improve their lives during Reconstruction? Do Now: Imagine you were a slave your whole life. Write what you would do after you were free.

 Leave plantation  Travel  Search for family members

 Freedmen’s schools for children and adults ◦ Economic opportunity  In 5 years, 10% of adults were literate  Racism against the educated

 Satisfaction of owning land  Many wanted to give land to slaves ◦ Radical Republicans  Deserved land from previous owners  Most never given land

 Return to plantations as wage earners  Now had a choice  Still need to grow cotton

 Worker rented a plot of land to farm  Landowner provided tools, seed, and housing  A share of harvest would be given to owner

 Freedmen wanted to grow crops for food  Landowners wanted cotton  Bought food from landowner – didn’t have money ◦ Debt  Recurring cycle

Aim: Explain the presidency of Andrew Johnson. Do Now: What are the two goals of Reconstruction?

 The process the federal government used to readmit the Confederates states to the Union ◦  Freedmen’s Bureau – set up to assist former slaves ◦ Schools, hospitals, clothes, food, jobs

 Democrat  Former slaveholder  Mild program to bring back South into Union ◦ 10% of people in state take oath to U.S. ◦ Accept 13 th Amendment

 Will have a struggle with Pres. Johnson over Reconstruction policies  Thaddeus Stevens  Demanded full and equal citizenship for African Americans

 Fighting with Congress ◦ 29 vetoes  Tenure of Office Act – prohibited president from firing government officials w/o Senate approval  Johnson fires Secretary of War  Johnson is impeached  Found not guilty by 1 vote ◦ Stays in office  SIGNIFICANCE – CONGRESS WILL CONTROL RECONSTRUCTION B/C JOHNSON IS SEEN AS WEAK

 Radical Reconstruction  Congress controls Reconstruction not president  Divide South into 5 military districts

Aim: How did ex-slaves lives stay very similar to the way they were during slavery? Do Now: How was the sharecropper cycle beneficial to the landowner but horrible for the sharecropper?

Aim: How did ex-slaves lives stay very similar to the way they were during slavery? Do Now: What were the goals of the KKK in the South? Open Discrimination in South worksheet

 Restore Democratic control of South and keep ex-slaves powerless  Violence and terror  Targeted successful freedmen

 Homes burned  Lynches – murder on spot w/o trial for supposed crime  Republicans afraid to vote

Aim: Explain Grant’s administration and the 15 th Amendment. Do Now: What were the goals of the KKK in the South? Take out homework.

 Would not have won w/o freedmen vote

 Worry that freedmen be kept from voting in future elections  Citizens could not be stopped from voting on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude

 KKK greatly affecting ex-slaves  Grant proposes anti-Klan law  Thousands of Klansmen are arrested

Aim: How did the Reconstruction Era come to an end? Do Now: How were people starting to lose interest in Reconstruction during Grant’s presidency? Take out homework.

 Grant did not choose advisers well  Many took bribes ◦ Secretary of War  Republicans angry and party weakens ◦ Some join Liberal Republican Party

 Eastern banks run out of money after bad loans  Banks across U.S. close  Depression – low business activity and high unemployment  Republicans lose power to Democrats  Lose interest in Reconstruction

 Federal government can’t punish those who violate civil rights ◦ State’s job  15 th Amendment didn’t give everyone the vote  Could prevent voters in other ways ◦ Poll taxes ◦ Literacy tests

 Vote so close  Compromise of 1877 ◦ Hayes (Rep.) is president ◦ Democrats get end of Reconstruction

 Federal troops removed  South now rebuilds  Democrat in cabinet

 Did rebuild and reunite  Equality not truly achieved  Poverty and racism for ex-slaves