1. Aim: To what extent did Reconstruction improve the lives of African Americans?

2. What do we know so far?
Take a picture!
Amendments (13,14,15) – to protect African American rights
Freedmen’s Bureau vs. Black Codes
Military occupation – to rebuild and enforce laws that change the South (carpetbaggers/scalawags)
Goals for Reconstruction differ:
a. White Southerners – want a return to former glory
b. African Americans – want a new and better life of freedom
c. Radical Republicans – want to enforce social, economic, and political change through laws/amend’s
d. Southern Democrats – return to old way of life
With these conflicting values and goals, change is going to be difficult! Many of the plans for Reconstruction will be thwarted by other actions.

3. Economic “Enslavement”
Sharecropping – an agricultural system designed to keep African Americans tied to the land.
White landowners in place, rent land to blacks and poor whites but system is corrupt.

5. Sharecropping
Problem: families accumulated debt to the landowner before their crop was sold
By the end of 1865, most freedmen had returned to work on the same plantations on which they were previously enslaved!

6. The End to Reconstruction
Don’t Copy this slide!
What was one major positive effect of Reconstruction?
The End to Reconstruction
Made the federal government STRONGER!
In 1876 Americans flocked to the centennial celebration of the United States in Philadelphia. The telephone and steam engine were introduced at this fair.
President Grant was reelected for a second term but many Americans began to forget the war and loose faith in the government.
President Grant made poor appointments for public jobs. Many of the appointments were his friends. This led to many PROBLEMS!
Frederick Douglass

7. Results of the End of Reconstruction?
The END of Reconstruction came with the Election of 1876…
REPUBLICAN Rutherford B. Hayes won the election and agreed to take troops OUT of the South = Democrats  - COMPROMISE OF 1877
Results of the End of Reconstruction?
Blacks lose rights – like what?
Blacks lost political positions and voting power
White southerners reassert their power
Sharecropping expands
Segregation begins (we’ll discuss MONDAY)
Don’t copy!

8. The “Invisible Empire of the South”
Don’t Copy this slide!
The “Invisible Empire of the South”
Many white Southerners who held power before the Civil War, known as conservatives, wanted the South to change as little as possible.
They were willing to let Africans vote and hold a few offices.
Other Southerners took a harsher view. They spread TERROR to African Americans and anybody who supported them.

9. Southern Backlash
Southern Democrats = “Redeemers” – use fear and violence to rig elections or racial arguments in campaigns
Ku Klux Klan – white supremacist terrorist organization
Point of Consideration:
While the military was present in the south, the Southern Democrats and KKK were LIMITED in their power.

10. "The Union as it was / The Lost Cause, worse than slavery."

12. D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (1915)
VIDEO CLIP

13. To what extent did Reconstruction improve the lives of African Americans?
Read through documents A,B,C, and D and create a two column chart where you record the successes and failures of Reconstruction.
Successes of Reconstruction Failures of Reconstruction

14. Plessy v. Ferguson (Textbook pgs. 496-497)
HOMEWORK due MONDAY
PRINT the worksheet from my website under
“Class Documents and Homeworks”
Plessy v. Ferguson (Textbook pgs )
(1896) – One of the most important cases of the post – Reconstruction period
1. Read the historical circumstances (background of the case) and write a summary in your notebook.
2. What Constitutional Amendments were used in the argument? Why?
3. Answer questions 1, 2, and 4 from the worksheet.
4. What did the court decide? Why was it significant?

15. Aim: How did the decision in Plessy v
Aim: How did the decision in Plessy v. Ferguson impact African Americans?

16. How were white Americans reacting to an increasing African American stance in society?
“…anxiety about an expanding government in the hands of those unwilling to work, who would enact welfare-type legislation to confiscate the property of the true workers in America.”
–Heather Cox Richardson, Harvard University
January 1879 cartoon from Harper’s Weekly despicting “Mr. Solid South” writing out the straegy of racial resentment: The Blak man orter be eddikated afore he kin vote with us Wites.”

17. African Americans Lose Rights- Voting Restrictions
1. Polling taxes: Polling taxes required voters to pay a fee every time they voted!
Why was it bad?
Africans rarely had the money to pay the tax so they couldn't vote.
2. Literacy tests: These tests required voters to read and write, sometimes even explain parts of the Constitution.
BUT they are NOT restricted from voting!
Why was it bad?
Since few Africans had an education and couldn't read, they were kept away from the polls.
3. Grandfather Clause: If a voter’s father or grandfather voted in an election the voter did not have to take the literacy test.
So, what’s the point?
Designed to prevent African Americans from voting

18. Southern states passed Jim Crow Laws
At the same time African Americans were losing the right to vote, racial segregation became the law of the South.
Racial segregation means separating people of different races.
Southern states passed
Jim Crow Laws
unofficial social customs and state and local laws that segregated races in public places (schools, restaurants, theaters, trains, streetcars, playgrounds, hospitals, and even cemeteries)

20. Jim Crow Analysis Worksheet
“It shall be unlawful for a negro and white person to play together or in company with each other in any game of cards or dice, dominoes or checkers.”
– Birmingham, Alabama, 1930
“Marriages are void when one party is a white person and the other is possessed of one-eighth or more negro, Japanese, or Chinese blood.” – Nebraska, 1911
“All railroads carrying passengers in the state (other than street railroads) shall provide equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored races, by providing two or more passenger cars for each passenger train, or by dividing the cars by a partition…” – Tennessee, 1891
“No colored barber shall serve as a barber to white women or girls.” – Atlanta, Georgia, 1926

21. Do we see segregation or discrimination in our lives today?

22. The Most Segregated Schools Are in the South, Right? WRONG
neaToday (National Ed. Association)
New York City, the largest school system in the country, is also one of the its most segregated. The share of white students enrolled in public schools declined by 10 percent in 2010 from 45 percent in 1989.
During the same time period, black enrollment declined by 20 percent, while Asian and Latino enrollment has increased significantly, 20 percent and 50 percent respectively.
A new report by UCLA’s Civil Rights Project (CRP) finds that public school students in New York are the most severely segregated in the nation.

23. HOMEWORK DISCUSSION Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
One of the most important cases of the post – Reconstruction period
1. Read the historical circumstances (background of the case) and write a summary in your notebook.
2. What Constitutional Amendments were used in the argument? Why?
3. Answer questions 1, 2, and 4 from the worksheet.
4. What did the court decide? Why was it significant?

24. VIDEO Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) Why was it significant?
Legalized segregation = “separate but equal” was considered Constitutional
The decision remained in effect until 1954!
VIDEO

25. How does this drawing represent the ideas decided in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson?

26. To what extent did Reconstruction improve the lives of African Americans?
Refer to your two column chart where you recorded the successes and failures of Reconstruction on Friday.
Anything to add?
Success of Reconstruction Failure of Reconstruction

27. Final Summary
Compare and contrast the majority and dissenting opinions in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson.
Then, write a personal reaction to the decision in the case.