Reconstruction Study Guide
Important people to know:
W.E.B. Du Bois:
Segregation should be stopped now. FULL political, civil, and social rights for African Americans.
Booker T. Washington:
Accepted segregation. Equality gained through vocational education,
THEN, worry about segregation later.
Robert E. Lee:
Urged Southerners to reconcile at the end of the war and reunite as Americans.
Became president of Washington College which is now known as Washington and Lee University.
Abraham Lincoln:
Reconstruction plan called for reconciliation, Preservation of the Union
was more important than punishing the South.
Frederick Douglass:
Wanted constitutional amendments that guaranteed voting rights, powerful human voice for human rights
and civil liberties for all.
Important Amendments and Laws to know:
Amendments & Supreme Courts Cases
Thirteenth Amendment
Important Facts
Ended/banned slavery in the United States
Fourteenth Amendment
Citizenship to Blacks and full protection under the
law (life, liberty & property).
Fifteenth Amendment
Gave black men the right to vote.
Plessy V. Ferguson
Jim Crow and Segregation Laws (Black Codes)
“Separate but equal” - Supreme Court case
Laws that limited the rights of Blacks. It kept Blacks
and Whites separate and gave power to the rich whites.
Important policies to know – most caused problems:
Southern military leaders could not hold office.
“Carpetbaggers” took advantage of the South during Reconstruction.
African Americans gained equal rights given by the Civil Rights Act of 1866; federal troops to enforce.
African Americans could hold public office.
Northern soldiers supervised the South.
Freedman’s Bureau established aid to former slaves in the South.
Southern states adopted Black Codes to limit the economic & physical freedom of former slaves.
Important effects of Reconstruction to know:
Racial segregation
based on race mostly at African Americans, other groups also kept segregated.
“Jim Crow” laws
passed to discriminate against African Americans.
Reconstruction ends in 1877
Federal troops were removed from the South.
“Jim Crow” laws: The rights that African Americans had gained where lost through “Jim Crow” laws.
Made discrimination practices legal in many communities and states.
Gave unequal opportunities in housing, work, education, government for African Americans.