Name _______________________________ Date _________________

Social Studies 8 Reconstruction

Analyzing Reconstruction
Aim: How did Reconstruction fail black American freedmen?

DO NOW
Analyze the following quote below based on your opinion. What do you think it means?
If you stand for nothing,
you will fall for everything
ANALYZING RECONSTRUCTION MUSEUM WALK !
Directions: With your group, travel to each exhibit/station and analyze each document.
Then, answer the questions that correspond. You have 3 minutes to utilize each document.
Good luck !


























Questions:
Exhibit #1:
1) Where is this photo taken?

2) When is this photo taken?

3) What do you notice about the theatre?


4) What other things may also be segregated in this town?


5) What effect do you think this segregation had on this town?


Exhibit #2:
1) Who is this man in the photo?

2) What happened to him?

3) Who is responsible for this crime?


4) What do you think the goal of this crime was?


Exhibit #3:
1) What group do you see in this photo?

2) What is the group doing?

3) Who formed this group?


4) What do you think the purpose of this group and this action was?


Exhibit #4:
1) List one Black code displayed in this exhibit.

2) What do you believe the purposes of the black codes were?


3) Do you think these codes are just (fair)? Why or why not?

Exhibit #5:
1) What did the Supreme Court conclude after the Plessy v. Ferguson case?

2) What was the purpose of Jim Crow laws?


3) How do you think this court case and Jim Crow laws impacted African-Americans?
Applying what I learned Answer the following
question and POST-IT OUT !
Think about the quotation discussed at the beginning of class. How can you relate this
quotation to Reconstruction?
Now that you have learned about the successes and failures of Reconstruction, do you
believe that it failed black Americans? Why or why not?

EXHIBIT #1







The Rex Theatre
Leland, Mississppi
June 1937
EXHIBIT #2









The body of Michael McDonald,
kidnapped and lynched by members of
the United Klans of America, 1881
EXHIBIT #3












The burning cross is a symbol used by the Klan to
create terror. The Klan was made up of former
Confederate soldiers. Cross burning is said to have
been introduced by William J. Simmons, the founder
of the second Klan in 1915
EXHIBIT #4












Black Codes
In other communities, Negro orphans were bound over to white
masters to work throughout their childhood
Curfew laws were prevalent, forcing colored citizens off the streets
after sundown
Negro witnesses could not testify against whites in court as to any
abuses or shortages in wages (pay) they might suffer
Other states required colored travelers to carry passes
Marriage between a person of color and any other citizen was null
and void
Any colored person convicted of a crime could be sentenced to hard
labor

- A Pictorial History of Black America, 1956
EXHIBIT #5















On June 7, 1892, a 30-year-old colored shoemaker named Homer
Plessy was jailed for sitting in the white car of the East Louisiana
Railroad. Plessy went to court and argued, in Homer Adolph Plessy v.
The State of Louisiana that the Separate Car Act violated the
Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. The
judge at the trial was John Howard Ferguson. In Plessys case, he
decided that the state could choose to regulate railroad companies
that operated only within Louisiana. He found Plessy guilty of refusing
to leave the white car.
Plessy appealed to the Supreme Court of Louisiana, which upheld
Fergusons decision. In 1896, the Supreme Court of the United States
heard Plessys case and found him guilty once again.
Justice Brown stated,
The object of the Fourteenth Amendment was
undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality of
the two races before the law, but in the nature of
things it could not have been intended to abolish
distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social,
as distinguished from political equality, or a co-
mingling of the two races