The Reconstruction era failed to establish equal rights and racial justice for African Americans. Racist groups like the Ku Klux Klan used violence and intimidation against blacks. Discriminatory laws and policies restricted black voting rights through poll taxes, literacy tests, and grandfather clauses. African Americans also faced social limitations through sharecropping and Jim Crow laws enforcing racial segregation. Leaders like W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington advocated for civil rights but disagreed on strategies for racial uplift. The 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court ruling legally sanctioned racial segregation under the "separate but equal" doctrine.

1. Collapse of the
Reconstruction
Jake Ploof

2. Did the Reconstruction Work?
• I do not think that the There were even government
reconstruction worked as well as it influenced policies that restricted
should have. Racism is the true black people. One of the key things
overall reason for this. Racism that the government used to restrict Ulysses S.
increased after the slaves were black people who wanted to vote. Grant passed
freed. Many racist organizations Ulysses S. Grant mad a fifteenth the 15th
were developed such as the Ku Klux amendment that allowed all people to amendment
Klan. The Ku Klux Klan is Americas vote. The government made many allowing all
first official terrorist group. They still policies to try to restrict black people races in
are around today and are extremely from voting. One of these policies was
America to
racist. They believe that white poll taxes. These made people pay
money in order to vote. This policy
vote.
people are dominant over all other
races. They started by murdering was ended in by the 24th amendment.
and lynching black people in public. The literacy test was another way to
The horrible act of lynching still discriminate against black people who
happens today. Another not so wanted to vote, but couldn’t read or
violent racist organization was the write. To make sure that white people
blackface minstrel. Blackface could vote they invented grandfather
portrays black people as hooligans clauses. This means that if your
with giant lips and certain strange grandfather could vote, then you
personalities. These are could vote. These were ways that the
organizations that encouraged government discriminated against
racism throughout the country. black people.

3. Social Limitations of
African Americans
• Many Social Limitations were placed on African Americans after
they were freed from slavery. One of these limitations basically
put them under slavery again. It was called sharecropping.
Sharecropping allowed white people to give black people
everything they needed to survive, but they would have to work
very hard and get very little pay. This was a lot like slavery. The
Jim Crow laws also effected the social limitations of African
Americans. They made black people be respectful to white people
as their superiors.

4. W. E. B. Dubois and the NAACP
• W. E. B. Dubois wanted all people to be treated equally. He also
provided information that refuted the myths of black people
being inferior to white people. He also founded the NAACP, an
organization that wants every race to be treated equally. It is still
going on today and is one of the country's oldest civil rights
movements.

5. Booker T. Washington
• Booker T. Washington grew up like many other black children of his
time, on a plantation. His father was white and his mother was black.
His father is unknown because he lived with his mother during his
young life. His mother got him a book that he learned to read and
write from. This began his lifelong pursuit for knowledge for himself,
and other black people. Eventually, in 1881 he ran a school called
Tuskegee University. He often clashed with W. E. B. Dubois over the
best avenues for racial uplift. Washington wanted black people to be
educated, but he did not want to interfere with white people
believing that they were superior to black people. He died in 1915 at
the age of 59 of heart failure.

6. Plessy V. Ferguson
• Homer Plessy was jailed for sitting in the “white” car rather
than the “black” car of the East Louisiana Railroad. Plessy was
only one eighth black and seven eighths white, but was still
told to sit in the “black” car. Plessy argued his case that the
separate car act violated the 13th and 14th amendments
against judge John Howard Ferguson. He was declared guilty
of not leaving the “white” car. Plessy also appealed to the
supreme court of Louisiana and to the Supreme Court of
America who both upheld Fergusons decision. They ruled that
separate facilities for white and black people were
constitutional as long as they were equal.

7. Solid South
• The Solid South was the southern states that traditionally
supported the democratic party after the Civil war.
The election of President Calvin Coolidge is a perfect example of
the solid south. All of the southeastern states had majority votes
for Davis the democratic candidate as all of the all of the other
states besides Wisconsin had majority votes for Coolidge.

8. Bibliography
• Ulysses S. Grant Booker T. Washington
Picture Homer
Picture
• http://www.answers.com/topic http://www.biography.com/
Plessy
/ulysses-s-grant
people/booker-t- Picture
washington- http://theg
Sharecropping
9524663?page=2 rio.com/20
Picture 12/05/29/j
http://belthorne2011.blogspot.c une-7th-
om/2011/05/sarah-rose-ezelle- White and Colored marks-
deborahs-class_18.html
Sign Photo beginning-
http://www.culturequest.us/ of-plessy-v-
W. E. B. Dubois ecomm/annstillman/Plessy% ferguson/
Picture 20VS%20F.html
http://www.naacp.org/page
s/naacp-history-w.e.b.- Solid South Example Map
http://orgs.uno.edu/unocr/Coolidge.h
dubois
tml