Reconstruction and the Birth of the Modern Civil Rights Movement

The central issue of Reconstruction in the South following the Civil War was very clear: the population of the South included about 3 1/2 million Freedman who had until the end of the war been slaves; integrating those Freedman into southern society was bound to be difficult, even under the best of circumstances. The circumstances at the end of the war in the South were not good. People were angry, millions of dollars worth of property had been destroyed, public and private wealth had vanished, and the Confederate government had disintegrated. Worst of all for some—the hated Yankee army still stood on Southern soil.

The goal of this project is for you to investigate more deeply how the Black experience during Reconstruction set the background for the modern civil rights movement. Although Reconstruction failed to achieve many of the goals established by the Republican-dominated Congress, for many former slaves Reconstruction was later seen as the “good old days.” For a while, anything seemed possible. Jefferson Davi's seat in United States Senate was taken by a Black man, Hiram Revels, as were two other Senate seats. Several Blacks served in United States House of Representatives and Blacks served in every state legislature and in many local positions of political authority. Freedman began to own land; Freedmen's schools were established; the long and painful transition from bondage to freedom was underway, and for a while the forward progress may have seemed unstoppable.

But it did stop, and then began to move backwards, so that much of the progress made during the Reconstruction years was undone by the turn of the century. Below you will find resources that describe, often in painfully graphic terms, the Reconstruction experience. Read the documents, follow the links, and right an essay of about five pages on how that experience still resonates today. The French have a saying, “the more things change, the more they remain the same.” Clearly a great deal has changed, and all of the Americans can be grateful for that; but it was hard, and your exercise is to understand just how hard it was.

Resources:

Many Reconstruction resources are available at the PBS Site. If you have broadband access, you can watch the PBS Series on Reconstruction.

Digital History's site is another rich source on Reconstruction.

Harper's weekly site on the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson

A Library of Congress Site on the Black Odyssey during Reconstruction

• Andrew Johnson's Reconstruction Proclamation 1865
• Mississippi & Louisiana Black Codes
• Terrorism in the South: Albion Tourgee on the KKK
• Booker T. Washington' s Atlanta Compromise
• Frederick Douglass on Reconstruction
• Force Acts of 1870 and 1871
• Plessy v. Ferguson and Justice Harlan's Dissent
• W.E.B. Du Bois on Booker T. Washington
• Texas v. White
• The 13th , 14th and 15th Amendments

Some suggestions—issues which you may want to address, though it is not required:

• Describe the problems America faced in trying to reconstruct the nation (the South in particular) after the Civil War.
• Why does historian Eric Foner call Reconstruction America's “Unfinished Revolution”?
• How could a former slave claim in 1867 that he didn't know what freedom was?
• How did the court see the issue of rights for the former slaves?
• Consider Harlan's dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson.
• What does the early civil rights movement seem to be about?

Don't forget to review the Topic Summary and use it for your own background.

Projects Home | History 122 Home | Updated May 29, 2008