1. Topic: Assessing the roles of Freedmen in the Post-War Period
Do Now:
“I am for Negro suffrage in every rebel state. If it be just, it should not be denied. If it be necessary, it should be adopted. If it be a punishment to traitors, they deserve it…”
-Thaddeus Stevens, 1867
Interpret the Meaning of the above statement

2. Blacks as new Freedmen Liberated, but without power or rights
NO: education, jobs, skills, money
Freedmen's Bureau established
Education
Locating families
“40 acres & a mule” promised
Early social welfare program
Resisted by southerners
Southern Black Codes
Attempt to control black labor force
Limits mobility, voting rights, etc.

4. Freedmen’s Political Power
Radical Republicans use military to weaken Black Codes
15th Amendment enforced  voting
Political alliance with Republicans
Blacks in national government (Hiram Revels in the Senate)
Freedmen win elections to state and local governments
Blacks working with “scalawags”
Reconstruction governments launch some positive reforms
Political power of freedmen decline in the 1870s

6. Freedmen and Society Southern White Opposition (KKK)
Many start to migrate to Southern cities
Some try to move west (“Exodusters”)
Independent Black churches
Families reformed, sense of community
Schools built
Role of “carpetbaggers”
Sharecropping:
95% forced to work ‘rented’ land of plantation owners
Dependence and debt cycle

8. Conclusion
1) What gains did African-Americans make during Reconstruction? Do you think they had power in the South in the 1860s-70s? Explain.
2) Why did Freedmen begin to loose power in the 1870s? Was this inevitable? Explain.