Reconstruction (1865-1877)

• Reconstruction spanned from 1865 to 1877.

Economic Changes in the South

• The Southern economy diversified, focusing on iron, steel, and textile mills.
• Industrial economy in the South required hired workers.
• The government helped rebuild Southern infrastructure, including railroads.

Political Changes in the South

• All 11 Southern states were readmitted to the Union.
• The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments guaranteed rights and equality to formerly enslaved people.
• Democrats eventually regained control of Southern states.

Discrimination in the South

• Black Codes were implemented to restrict African Americans, barring them from:
  • Serving on juries
  • Testifying against whites in court
  • Interracial marriage
  • Owning land
• African Americans were often restricted from skilled jobs.
• The 13th Amendment allowed slavery to be used as punishment for a crime or unpaid debts.

Civil Rights Setbacks in the Supreme Court

• 1873 Slaughterhouse Cases: Civil rights were ruled as state, rather than federal, rights, and therefore unprotected by the Fourteenth Amendment.
• 1876 U.S. v. Cruikshank: The Fourteenth Amendment was ruled not to grant the federal government power to punish whites who oppressed blacks.
• 1876 U.S. v. Reese: The Fifteenth Amendment was determined to restrict types of voter discrimination, instead of granting voting rights.

Violence and Intimidation

• Violence and intimidation were used to enforce white supremacy.
• The Ku Klux Klan formed during Reconstruction to attack African Americans who tried to vote or challenge white supremacy.
• Lynching increased.
• Black codes and the KKK limited black voting.
• The Democratic Party resurged in southern state governments.
• "Redeemer Democrats" aimed to restore the "Old South."
• Federal troops in the South struggled to protect civil rights.

Shift in Political Control

• Southern state governments shifted from Republican to Democratic control.

Federal Reaction

• President Grant and Congress tried to protect African Americans in the South, succeeding at first in dismantling the KKK.
• Northern interest in Reconstruction diminished over time with focus shifting to government corruption.

Sharecropping and Poverty

• Most freedmen worked on the same plantations where they were previously enslaved.
• Sharecropping involved white landowners renting sections of fields to black workers in exchange for 1/4 to 1/2 of the cotton produced.
• Tenants were often forced to get loans from landowners for tools or seed.
• Landowners often used underhanded methods to increase the amount that the tenants had to pay.
• Sharecropping created a cycle of poverty that lasted until the 1940s.

Election of 1876

• The Democratic Party regained power in the South, and federal troops were the only protection for black rights.
• The Election of 1876 resulted in neither candidate winning a majority of electoral votes.
• The Compromise of 1877: Democrats agreed to vote for Hayes (Republican) if federal troops were removed from the remaining southern states (SC, FL, LA).
• Republicans agreed to be lenient towards the South in exchange for Hayes' election and an end to threats of violence.
• Reconstruction officially ended after the compromise.

Jim Crow Era

• The Jim Crow Era (1877-1954) followed Reconstruction.
• Jim Crow laws enforced segregation in Southern society and restricted black suffrage through poll taxes and literacy tests.