United States History Student Edition

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Complete Your Inquiry EVALUATE SOURCES AND USE EVIDENCE Refer back to the Compelling Question and the Supporting Questions you developed at the beginning of the lesson. 1. Evaluating Which sources do you believe illustrate the successes of Reconstruction? Which illustrate the failures? 2. Interpreting What do the sources reveal about the challenges faced by African Americans during the Reconstruction era? 3. Gathering Sources Which sources helped you answer the Supporting Questions and the Compelling Question? Which sources, if any, challenged what you thought you knew when you first created your Supporting Questions? What information do you still need in order to answer your questions? What other viewpoints would you like to investigate? Where would you find that information? 4. Evaluating Sources Identify the sources that helped answer your Supporting Questions. How reliable is each source? How would you verify the reliability of each source? COMMUNICATE CONCLUSIONS 5. Collaborating Work with a partner to evaluate the successes and failures of Reconstruction, as well as the overall impact of the era. How do these sources demonstrate or illustrate its impact? Write a short essay using the graphic organizer that you created at the beginning of the lesson to help you. Share your essay with the class. TAKE INFORMED ACTION Creating a Podcast Many voting rights activists argue that voter suppression still exists today and is meant to target African Americans and other minority communities. Identify a state that has passed a recent law that some argue has had the effect of suppressing the votes of some members of the community. Research both sides of the issue—those who say the law is a method of voter suppression and those who say such

Frederick Douglass on Reconstruction

In the years before the Civil War and after, Frederick Douglass was a leading voice for African American rights. Born into slavery in 1818, Douglass taught himself to read and write. At age 20, he escaped to the North. He discussed Reconstruction in his book The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass . PRIMARY SOURCE: AUTOBIOGRAPHY “ The citizenship granted in the fourteenth amendment is practically a mockery , and the right to vote, provided for in the fifteenth amendment, is literally stamped out in face of government. The old master class is to- day triumphant, and the newly- enfranchised class in a condition but little above that in which they were found before the rebellion. . . . Our reconstruction measures were radically defective. They left the former slave completely in the power of the old master. . . . [T]he old master class . . . could not, of course, sell their former slaves, but they retained the power to starve them to death. . . . Though no longer a slave, he is . . . compelled to work for whatever his employer is pleased to pay him . . . and to be kept upon the narrowest margin between life and starvation. ” — from The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, 1881 mockery laughable imitation enfranchise to be given the rights of citizenship EXAMINE THE SOURCE 1. Summarizing What was Douglass’s opinion of Reconstruction, according to the excerpt? 2. Interpreting According to Douglass, what “power” did former slaveholders still have during Reconstruction?

laws are needed to protect voting security. Write and record a podcast about the issue. Play your finished podcast for the rest of the class or interested groups in the community.

Douglass, Frederick. The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. London: Christian Age Office, 1882.

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