1. Chapter 13, Lesson 5
ACOS #11: Identify causes of the Civil War, including states’ rights and the issue of slavery.
11a: Recognizing key northern and southern personalities, including Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Ulysses Grant, Robert E. Lee, “Stonewall” Jackson, William Tecumseh Sherman, and Joseph Wheeler.
11b: Describe social, economic, and political conditions that effected citizens during the Civil War.
11c: Identify Alabama’s role in the Civil War.
11d: Locate on a map sites important to the Civil War.
11e: Explain events that led to the conclusion of the Civil War.

2. Vocabulary Words
Sharecropping – a system where poor farmers used a landowner’s fields. In return, the farmer gave the landowner a share of his crop.
Jim Crow – a nickname for laws that kept African Americans separate from other Americans.
Segregation – the forced separation of the races.

3. The Challenge of Freedom
African Americans had to struggle to make a living during Reconstruction.
They worked to educate themselves and took part in politics.
Reconstruction ended the plantation system in the South, leaving many people there very poor.
Freed people wanted to farm for themselves, but few had money to buy land.
Landowners set up a system called sharecropping that let poor whites and former slaves become farmers.
In sharecropping, poor farmers used a landowner’s fields. In return, the farmer gave the landowner a share of his crop. Landowners often loaned sharecroppers tools and seeds as well.
Sharecropping gave African Americans some independence. It also kept poor farmers in debt.
After selling their crops, many sharecroppers did not have enough money to pay the landowners what they owed, so they kept borrowing and could never get out of debt.

4. Responses to Reconstruction
Reconstruction angered some people in the South.
They opposed the new laws that protected African Americans’ rights.
They also disliked Federal soldiers in the South to enforce the laws.
Some people wanted to stop African Americans from taking part in government.
They formed secret organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan. They KKK threatened, beat, and even killed African Americans to keep them from voting.
The Klan also attacked people who helped African Americans.

5. The End of Reconstruction
In 1877, the new President, Rutherford B. Hayes, ended Reconstruction and ordered government soldiers to leave the South.
Without protection, many African Americans were unable to vote and they lost their political power.
Southern states began passing Jim Crow laws.
Jim Crow was a nickname for laws that kept African Americans separate from other Americans. These laws made segregation legal.
Segregation is the forced separation of the races.
These laws did not stop African Americans from ruining their hopes for the future. African American churches across the country became important centers in African American communities.
Many schools formed for African American children in the South. Eager students believed that education would give them a chance for a better life.
In 1881, a former slave named Booker T. Washington opened the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. All of Tuskegee’s teachers and students were African Americans. The most famous teacher at Tuskegee was George Washington Carver, who invented over 300 products made from peanuts. Carver’s discoveries helped farmers across the South.