Life Under Reconstruction

1865-1877

The Good, The Bad,

and The Ugly

Reforms made

under

Reconstruction

made the civil rights

movement possible

GOALS #21 & #22

I. What was good about Reconstruction?

A. Freedman’s Bureau

– set up schools,

hospitals and

distributed food,

clothing and fuel for

African-Americans

What was good about

Reconstruction?

B. Legislation

- 13th Amendment – made slavery illegal in the

U.S.A.

- 14th Amendment – all people born in the

U.S.A. were citizens and were entitled equal

protection under the law

- 15th Amendment – gave all MALE citizens

the right to vote

Right to vote!

•African-Am. MEN

can vote and hold

public office for first

time

•C. Whites attempted to

limit this right by-

•Grandfather clause

•Literacy tests

•Poll taxes

D. New Power Structure

Most white Southerners could not hold office because of ironclad oath

Carpetbaggers – Northerners who traveled to the South for political and financial advantage

Scalawags – Southerners who supported Reconstruction and were considered traitors

African-Americans

Power shift in the South

The scalawags,

carpetbaggers and former

slaves now held all the

power in Southern state

legislatures

Southerners resented

African-Am. as lawmakers

and fellow voters

II. What was bad about

Reconstruction?

Black Codes – Laws meant to discriminate

against African-Americans- also called “Jim

Crow laws”

A. Jim Crow Laws

•Popular song in the 1800’s

• It stood for all the laws that

made it OK to separate

whites and African-

Americans (segregation)

No land ownership

B. Sharecropping – Land, animals, and farm tools supplied

landowner

Cropper received a share (usually 1/3rd to ½ ) for his work

African-Americans remained very poor

C. President Grant 1868-1876

Gen. Ulysses Grant –

one of our worst

Presidents

Tolerated a lot of

corruption

Let the Radical

Republicans control

the South

III. What was ugly about

Reconstruction? Southern whites

attempt to take back control

What was ugly about Reconstruction?

A. Ku Klux Klan was

formed in 1866 to scare

African-Am.

In the 1920’s, 5 million

Am. belonged to the Klan

Today may be 8,000

Klan members

Lynching

Murder by mob violence

IV. End of Reconstruction – 12

years later Compromise of 1877

-The Deal

Republican Rutherford B. Hayes became President

Democrats were promised that troops would leave the South

What was ugly about Reconstruction?

White Southerners returned to power.

Discrimination and segregation became a

part of American society for many years