Please sit in your assigned seats and quietly follow the directions below: Which group was created in late 1865 to resist Reconstruction efforts in the South? A) the Ku Klux Klan B) the Scalawags C) the White Knights D) the Knights of Columbus

USHC Standard 3: The student will demonstrate an understanding of how regional and ideological differences led to the Civil War and an understanding of the impact of the Civil War and Reconstruction on democracy in America. USHC 3.4: Summarize the end of Reconstruction, including the role of anti-African American factions and competing national interests in undermining support for Reconstruction; the impact of the removal of federal protection for freedmen; and the impact of Jim Crow Laws and voter restrictions on African American rights in the post-Reconstruction era.

Main Idea: During Reconstruction, democracy was expanded as the federal government protected the rights of the freedmen. However when the federal government abandoned their role as protector, democracy was compromised and the rights of African Americans were limited by southern state governments.

Voting in the South • During Reconstruction, anti-African American factions such as the Ku Klux Klan were organized to intimidate black voters in the South • African Americans were able to vote only with the protection of federal troops stationed in the South under military Reconstruction, but there were never enough federal troops to protect African American voters from both economic and physical intimidation and violence, including lynching

X

• When white voters were pardoned and returned to lead southern governments, Republican office holders were gradually replaced • Southern governments would remain under control of white Democrats and be known as the “Solid South” until the Civil Rights Era (1960’s)

DEMOCRAT

Why did the North give up their efforts to re-unite the Union? • The corruption of the Grant administration, economic depression in the North, the growing interest in western settlement and economic growth replaced the nation’s interest in preserving the gains made in the Civil War • At the same time, newspaper reports of continuing violence towards freedmen undermined the belief among the northern public that things would ever be different in the South • The resolve of the public and Congress to protect the freedman decreased in the face of continuing resistance of southerners to granting equal citizenship to African Americans

The Election of 1876 and the Compromise of 1877 • The disputed election of 1876 led to the compromise of 1877 • In the election of 1876, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes was awarded the White House over Democrat Samuel J. Tilden • Tilden was ahead of Hayes, 184 electoral votes to 165 with 20 electoral votes left • The 20 remaining votes belonged to Florida, Louisiana and South Carolina

• When the remaining 20 electoral votes were cast for Hayes, it became obvious that a compromise had been made • Compromise of 1877: Republican Rutherford B. Hayes would become president of the United States, and the Reconstruction policies being enforced in the South would end • The withdrawal of federal troops and their protection of the freedman brought an end to Reconstruction

Samuel J. Tilden Rutherford B. Hayes

Main Idea: When Reconstruction ended, African Americans were left to fend for themselves in an increasingly hostile and unregulated South.

What happened to African Americans in the South? Main Idea: In the two decades after the end of Reconstruction, the rights promised to African Americans in the 14th and 15th Amendments and protected by the national government during Reconstruction were gradually rescinded by southern state governments

• Southern states passed laws requiring African Americans and whites to use separate facilities • Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896): landmark court case that upheld segregation in the “separate but equal” ruling. This negated the equal protection provisions of the 14th amendment and hastened the enactment of more Jim Crow Laws

Main Idea: The federal government, which had once championed the rights of African Americans during Reconstruction, had not only abandoned them but now, through the Supreme Court, legitimized discrimination against them

• Segregated by law, African Americans became second class citizens in a society that was separate but NOT equal

How were African Americans’ rights limited? • Poll taxes and literacy tests severely restricted the 15th amendment for African Americans • The grandfather clause assured that whites who could not read or pay the tax were able to vote • Without the vote, African Americans could not protect themselves through their state governments

The Southern Economy after the Civil War: • As cotton exhausted the soil and cotton prices fell, sharecroppers and tenant farmers found themselves in increasingly difficult economic conditions • When textile mills opened in the South in the late 1880’s, African Americans were discriminated against in hiring • Unable to get other work in the South, many African Americans fell farther into poverty and some migrated to the cities of the North

Answer these ?s on a piece of paper: What happened to African Americans after Reconstruction ended? What was the goal of the KKK? What was the “Solid South?” Why was Reconstruction “given up?” What happened in Plessy vs. Ferguson? (What did it create?) How did white southerners prevent black southern men from voting?