1. In response to reading the Gettysburg Address, consider the following questions for discussion:
Any lines or words stand out?
(2) What does it mean, “Four score and seven years ago … a new nation conceived in liberty?”
(3) Why do you suppose he says, “The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here?”
(4) What does it mean when Lincoln says, “a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth?”

2. Why was Reconstruction a Revolution?
Freedmen’s Bureau
Military
Reconstruction Act
14th Amendment
15th Amendment
Political Representation

3. Reconstruction
Era between 1865 to 1877, involving “bringing” the states back into the Union and changing institutions.
Was it a success or failure? Tough question.

4. African American Representation Achievements
Served in government as mayors, police chiefs, state representatives and in the United States Congress.
Blanche Bruce (1875 – 81)
Hiram Revels (1870 – 71)

5. *** Rise of the Ku Klux Klan

6. 2nd Era of “Reconstruction” The Civil Rights Era (1954 – 1968)

7. Freedmen’s Bureau Assisting those displaced by the Civil War:
[1] Food, water, and other essentials
Assisting freed slaves after the Civil War:
[2] Establish schools for education
[3] Health care & legal services
[4] Establish labor contracts

8. Freedmen’s Bureau and Education

9. Imagine being a former slave and now a “Freedman” … How significant is this change?
No state-supported, mandatory school system existed in the South.
The Bureau spent $5 million to establish schools.
By 1865, 90,000 former slaves were enrolled in schools.
Attendance rates were between 79% - 82%.

10. Worksheet Questions on Reconstruction