7.4The promise of Reconstruction

Reconstruction sought to rebuild the South and define the place of freed people in American life. The Republican-controlled Congress, clashing bitterly with President Andrew Johnson, drove an ambitious program. Two landmark amendments enshrined new rights: the Fourteenth (1868) granted citizenship and equal protection to all born in the country, and the Fifteenth (1870) barred denying the vote based on race.

For a time, the promise seemed real. Black men voted in large numbers and were elected to state legislatures and Congress. Freed people built churches, schools, and communities. Backed by federal troops and the Freedmen's Bureau, a genuine experiment in multiracial democracy took root across the South.