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.

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 / Important Facts
Thirteenth Amendment / 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 / “Separate but equal” - Supreme Court case
Jim Crow and Segregation Laws / Laws that limited the rights of blacks. It kept Blacks and Whites separate and gave power to the rich whites.

Reconstruction Effects

·  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.

·  Northern soldiers supervised the South.

·  Freedman’s Bureau established aid to former slaves in the South.

RECONSTRUCTION ENDED WITH THE COMPROMISE OF 1877 (leading to…)

·  Racial segregation based on race mostly at African Americans, other groups also kept segregated.

·  “Jim Crow” laws passed to discriminate against African Americans.

“Jim Crow” laws:

·  Made discrimination practices legal in many communities and states.

·  Gave unequal opportunities in housing, work, education, government for African Americans.

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