Were African-Americans Free During Reconstruction?Name______

Reconstruction Amendment Reminders: Which rights are guaranteed under these amendments?

1. Define “Black Codes”:

2. Read the following document, underlining ways in which African-Americans were not free during Reconstruction. Answer the questions below.

All freedmen, free negroes and mulattoes in this State, over the age of eighteen years, found on the second Monday in January, 1866, or thereafter, with no lawful employment or business, or found unlawfully assembling themselves together, either in the day or night time, and all white persons so assembling themselves with freedmen, free negroes or mulattoes, or usually associating with freedmen, free negroes or mulattoes, on terms of equality, shall be deemed vagrants, and on conviction thereof shall be fined in a sum not exceeding, in the case of a freedman, free negro or mulatto, fifty dollars, and a white man two hundred dollars, and imprisoned at the discretion of the court, the free negro not exceeding ten days, and the white man not exceeding six months....
Word Bank
Mulattoes- People of mixed raceConviction- a sentence by the court
Vagrants- A beggarDiscretion- preference
Source: This excerpt is from section two of Mississippi’s Vagrant Law, enacted in 1866.

a. (Source) When was this code enacted in relation to the Civil War?

b. What were the lawmakers in Mississippi afraid of?

c. (Corroboration) Which of the three Reconstruction amendments did the Black Codes violate and why?

Reconstruction Amendment Reminders: Which rights are guaranteed under these amendments?

1. Define “Grandfather Clause”:

2. Read the following document, underlining ways in which African-Americans were not free during Reconstruction. Answer the questions below.

Sec. 3. The voter shall be able to read and write, and shall demonstrate his ability to do so when he applies for registration, by making…written application containing the essential facts necessary to show that he is entitled to register and vote, and shall be entirely written, dated and signed by him, in the presence of the registration officer or his deputy, without assistance or suggestion from any person
Sec. 4. If he be not able to read and write, as provided by Section three . . . then he shall be entitled to register and vote if he shall, at the time he offers to register, be the bona fide owner of property assessed to him in this State at a valuation of not less than three hundred dollars
Sec. 5. No male person entitled to vote under the Constitution on Jan. 1, 1867 or before shall be denied the right to register and vote in this State by reason of his failure to possess the educational or property qualifications outlined by this Constitution. In addition, no son or grandson of any such person described above who is at least twenty-one years of age at the time of the adoption of this Constitutionshall be denied the right to register and vote in this State by reason of his failure to possess the educational or property qualifications prescribed by this Constitution.

Retrieved from the Teaching History website:
Original from: "Constitution of the State of Louisiana, Adopted May 12, 1898," in Walter L. Fleming, ed., Documentary History of Reconstruction, Vol. 2 (Cleveland, Ohio: The Arthur H. Clark Company, 1906), 451–453.

a. How is the grandfather clause specifically discriminatory towards former slaves?

b. (Corroboration) Which of the three Reconstruction amendments did the Black Codes violate and why?

Define “Literacy Test”:

Take the Literacy test below. You have five minutes.

Which of the three Reconstruction amendments do literacy tests violate?

Name ______

Answer the following four questions and write the letter at the bottom of the page.

1. Situation where poor people (white and black) worked the land for a share of the earnings:

  1. Black code
  2. Sharecropping
  3. Grandfather clause
  4. Literacy Test

2. Allowing a person to vote based on his ability to read and write:

  1. Black code
  2. Sharecropping
  3. Grandfather clause
  4. Literacy Test

3. Part of a law which allowed a person to vote based if previous generations in his family voted:

  1. Black code
  2. Sharecropping
  3. Grandfather clause
  4. Literacy Test

4. Rules for African-Americans in the south during reconstruction which helped maintain white control:

  1. Black code
  2. Sharecropping
  3. Grandfather clause
  4. Literacy Test

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Imagine you are a southerner during Reconstruction. Write a letter to your congressman describing your freedom, or lackthereof using evidence from things we have learned over the last two days. Meaningful references to all four terms will earn a beyond proficient grade.

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