United States History Student Edition

African American students and white students usually went to different schools. Few states had laws requiring schools to be integrated (IHN•tuh•grayt•uhd). Integrated schools have both white students and African American students. Often, integration laws were not enforced. Along with education, freed people wanted land. Having their own farmland would enable them to feed and support their families. Some African Americans bought land with the help of the Freedmen’s Bank. Many freed people, however, had no choice but to farm the land owned by whites. In the sharecropping (SHEHR•krah•peeng) system, landowners rented land to farmers called sharecroppers. Sharecroppers gave a percentage of their crops to the landowner. Landowners often demanded an unfairly large percentage, which left sharecroppers with almost nothing to support themselves. Other practices by white landowners, such as offering credit on unfair terms, equally hurt newly freed African Americans. For many, sharecropping was little better than slavery. 7 CHECK FOR UNDERSTANDING Describing How did sharecroppers get land to farm? Reconstruction Ends GUIDING QUESTION How did Democrats regain control of Southern governments? As Reconstruction ended, African Americans in the South began to face conditions similar to slavery. Against this backdrop, the Democratic Party managed to hang on to—and even gain— political power. President Grant and Reconstruction As a general, Ulysses S. Grant had led the North to victory in the Civil War. His reputation as a war hero carried him into the White House in the election of 1868 and to reelection in 1872. Unfortunately, Grant had little experience in politics. integrate to unite, or to blend into a united whole; to bring races together sharecropping system of farming in which a farmer works land for an owner and receives a share of the crop

Scandal and corruption plagued Grant’s presidency. In addition, a severe economic depression began during his second term. A crisis arose when a powerful banking firm declared bankruptcy. This triggered a wave of fear known as the Panic of 1873. It set off a depression that lasted much of the decade. The depression and the scandals in the Grant administration hurt the Republican Party. In the 1874 congressional elections, the Democrats won back control of the House of Representatives. Democrats also made gains in the Senate. These changes cost the Radical Republicans much of their power. Meanwhile, Southern Democrats worked hard to regain control of their state governments. They got help from groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, which terrorized African Americans and other Republican voters. The Democrats who came to power in the South called themselves “redeemers.” They claimed to have redeemed, or saved, their states from “black Republican” rule. The Election of 1876 Ohio governor Rutherford B. Hayes was the Republican candidate for president in 1876. Hayes held moderate views on Reconstruction. Republicans hoped he would appeal to voters in both the North and the South. Hayes ran against Democrat Samuel Tilden, the governor of New York, in a very close election.

This illustration depicts formerly enslaved people boarding riverboats to leave the South. Evaluating Sources In what way does this image help historians understand life for African Americans after the Civil War?

North Wind Picture Archives/Alamy Stock Photo

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