1. This 1865 cartoon pokes fun at two Richmond ladies as they pass by a Union officer on their way to receive free government rations This cartoon from the presidential campaign of 1864 shows the “Rail Splitter.” Shows Lincoln leveraging the broken nation back together with his running mate, Andrew Johnson

2. Wartime Reconstruction President Lincoln’s plan – Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction (December 1863) South’s transition from slavery to free labor Freedmen’s Bureau – distributed food and clothing to impoverished Southerners & eased the transition of blacks from slaves to free persons The African American Quest for Autonomy

3. Presidential Reconstruction President Andrew Johnson’s program of Reconciliation Black Codes – sought to keep former slaves subordinate to whites by subjecting them to every sort of discrimination The 14 th Amendment made Blacks national citizens & provided a national guarantee of equality before the law 15 th Amendment to the Constitution – prohibited states from depriving any citizen of the right to vote because of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude”

4. Black Reconstruction During Reconstruction, some 2,000 African Americans served as officeholders at various levels of government in the South Wherever they served, they sought to balance the interests of black and white southerners For the black community, political participation and the vote during Reconstruction represented key expressions of citizenship & national belonging Freedmen allied themselves with the Republican Party, the party of emancipation and Lincoln The vote made economic, social, and political liberties possible & helped protect them

7. Sharecroppers Sharecropping – in this system planters divided their cotton plantations into small farms that freedmen rented, paying with a share of each year’s crop, usually half Most African Americans remained depended on white landlords, who had the power to expel them at the end of each growing season Crop Lien - a merchant would advance goods to a sharecropper in exchange for a lien, or legal claim, on the farmer’s future crop

9. Northern Resolve Declines Economic depression of 1873 the Ku Klux Klan Act (1871), made interference with voting rights a felony Civil Rights Act of 1875, which boldly outlawed racial discrimination in transportation, public accommodations, and juries Slaughterhouse cases (1873) White Supremacy strengthens in the South The Redeemers - swore to save southern civilization from a descent into “African barbarism”

10. Redeemers was a name taken by southern Democrats whose goal was to overthrow Republican rule & black political power

11. What is the message of this Democratic Party advertisement? What words and images does it use to convey its message? What prejudices does this advertisement appeal to?

12. Opportunities & Limits Outside the South During Reconstruction, the migration of African Americans to the West continued steadily in the belief that their lives would improve Nevertheless in the West, blacks encountered prejudice and discrimination African American military units after the Civil War – the 9 th and 10 th Calvary Regiments and the 24 th and 25 th Infantry Regiments all assigned to military posts in the West