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1865–1877
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chapter 9 Reconstruction: The Making and Unmaking of a Revolution
for the colored children in your neighborhood.” and legislative power, the fate of the freedpeo-
Jourdon explained, “The great desire of my life ple hung in the balance. When Congress proved
now is to give my children an education, and more powerful, laws and constitutional amend-
have them form virtuous habits.” 1 ments sought to ensure African American civil
Jourdon Anderson’s extraordinary response and voting rights. For about a decade from 1867
to his former master’s request that he and his to 1877, African Americans in the South, even
family come back to work on the old homestead more than in the North, actively and respon-
pointedly reveals the concerns of African Amer- sibly participated in public life. Intense, often
icans as they built new lives for themselves in violent, southern white opposition, coupled
freedom. Family ties, church and community, with a dwindling national concern for freedpeo-
dignified labor with fair compensation, and ple as the country turned to economic devel-
education for their children were top priori- opment, undermined the revolutionary period
ties. But these were neither safe nor protected of interracial democracy and the political gains
in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, as black people had made during Reconstruction.
many white landowners sought to ensure that Some left the South for other regions of the
former slaves continued working the land and country, but wherever they tried to put down
remained bound by white rule. The tension roots — in the U.S. military, in new all-black
between black assertiveness and white racism towns in Kansas and Oklahoma, and in north-
made interracial conflict inevitable. Freedom ern and midwestern cities where they sought
brought a revolution in black economic, social, jobs in factories — they struggled to achieve
and political life, but it did not bring equality. equal rights and independent lives.
As President Andrew Johnson and the Radical
Republicans in Congress battled over executive

A Social Revolution

For the four million African Americans who had been enslaved, freedom brought new
goals and responsibilities. While the Thirteenth Amendment (December 1865) formally
abolished slavery, the enslaved themselves had spearheaded their own emancipation by
running to freedom behind Union lines, supporting the Union war effort, and under-
mining the Confederate war effort. Foremost for many after emancipation was reuniting
with family members from whom they had been separated. Economic independence
wrought immediate changes in family structure and shifting gender roles for men and
women, as well as hope for the future. Extended families and community structures
such as new schools and independent black churches provided services and support
in the new environment of freedom. Labor arrangements had to be renegotiated, even
though for most freedpeople, the nature of their work — field work and domestic

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