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Learn
About  Reconstruction
Immediately
following the war, all-white Southern legislatures passed black codes
which denied blacks the right to purchase or rent land. These efforts
to force former slaves to work on plantations led Congressional Republicans
to seize control of Reconstruction from President Andrew Johnson, deny
representatives from the former Confederate states their Congressional
seats, and pass the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and draft the 14th
Amendment, extending citizenship rights to Afican Americans and guaranteeing
equal protection of the laws. In 1870, the country went further by ratifying
the 15th Amendment, which gave voting rights to black men.
The most radical proposal advanced during Reconstruction—to confiscate
plantations and redistribute portions of the land to the freedmen—was
defeated.
The freedmen,
in alliance with carpetbaggers (Northerners who had migrated to the
South after the Civil War) and southern white Republicans known as scalawags,
temporarily gained power in every former Confederate state except Virginia.
The Reconstruction governments drew up democratic state constitutions,
expanded women’s rights, provided debt relief, and established the South’s
first state-funded schools. But internal divisions within the Southern
Republican party, white terror, and Northern apathy allowed white Southern
Democrats known as Redeemers to return to power.
During
Reconstruction former slaves and many small white farmers became trapped
in a new system of economic exploitation known as sharecropping. In
exchange for land, a cabin, and supplies sharecroppers agreed to raise
a cash crop and give half the crop to their landlord. High interests
rates charged for goods bought on credit transformed sharecropping into
a system of economic dependency and poverty.
The
twelve years following the Civil War carried vast consequences for the
nation’s future. They helped set the pattern for future race relations
and defined the federal government’s role in promoting racial equality.
Edwin
H. McCaleb, 1865
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/documents/
documents_p2.cfm?doc=180
A
former supporter of the Confederacy responds to Lincoln's death,
describes conditions in the post-war South, and gives voice to
attitudes that would help shape Reconstruction
To
learn more
Maps:
Map of territorial growth, 1870.
Images:
To
learn more
Timelines:
Click
here for timeline.
Fact sheets and lesson plans:
Fact sheetmaybe
an s2:
Reconstruction
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/us21.cfm
Recommended
lesson plan:
The
Impeachment of Andrew Johnson
Impeachment Simulation Game
http://www.impeach-andrewjohnson.com/
15ImpeachmentSimulationGame/SimulationGameTopPage.htm
Fact checks:
Test
your knowledge about Reconstruction
Recommended readings:
Eric
Foner, Reconstruction
A
magisterial overview and interpretation of Reconstruction that emphasizes
the centrality of race and the role of African Americans in shaping
events between 1865 and 1877.
 Recommended
films:
The
Birth of a Nation
The most popular silent film ever made, demonstrates the power of film
as propaganda. It provided millions of viewers with a grossly
misleading portrait of Reconstruction as a period when the natural order
of the South was overturned. The film provided historical legitimization
for segregation, disfranchisement, and racial violence in early twentieth
century America.
Gone
With the Wind
One of the most popular films ever made, Gone With the Wind helped
shape the way that generations of Americans viewed the Civil War and
Reconstruction. It encouraged viewers to romanticize the Old
South as a land of “moonlight and magnolias” and reinforced the image
of the war and Reconstruction as periods when the prostrate South
was exploited and region’s natural leaders were thrust into poverty.
Learn
more:
Learn
More:
See Leon Litwack, “The Birth of a Nation” in Mark C. Carnes,
ed., Past Imperfect: History According to the Movies
See Catherine Clinton, “Gone With the Wind” in Mark C. Carnes, ed.,
Past Imperfect: History According to the Movies
 Recommended
Web site:
Civil
War and Reconstruction
The
Library of Congress Learning Page
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/features/timeline/
civilwar/civilwar.html
Freedman’s
Bureau Online
http://www.freedmensbureau.com/
Records
of the Freedman’s Bureau, including extensive information about
violence directed against African Americans.
To
learn more
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