Page 401 - American Stories, A History of the United States

Blacks served or supported corrupt and wasteful regimes because the alternative
16.1 was dire. Although the Democrats, or Conservatives as they called themselves in some
states, made sporadic efforts to attract African American voters, it was clear that if they
won control, they would strip blacks of their civil and political rights. But opponents of
16.2 Radical Reconstruction capitalized on racial prejudice and persuaded many Americans
that “good government” was synonymous with white supremacy.
Contrary to myth, the few African Americans elected to state or national office

16.3 during Reconstruction demonstrated on the average more integrity and competence
than their white counterparts. Most were fairly well educated, having been free or
unusually privileged slaves before the war. Among the most capable were Robert Smalls
(whose career was described earlier); Blanche K. Bruce of Mississippi, elected to the
16.4
U.S. Senate in 1874 after rising to prominence in the Republican party of his home
Quick Check state; Congressman Robert Brown Elliott of South Carolina, an adroit politician who
What were the three social groups was also a consistent champion of civil rights; and Congressman James T. Rapier of
that made up the southern Alabama, who stirred the nation in 1873 with his appeals for federal aid to southern
Republican party? education and new laws to enforce equal rights for African Americans.

Claiming Public and Private Rights

The ways that freed slaves claimed rights for themselves were as important as party
politics to the changing political culture of the Reconstruction South. Ex-slaves fought
for their rights not only in negotiations with employers and in public meetings and
convention halls, but also through the institutions they created and, perhaps most
important, the households they formed.
Some ex-slaves used institutions formerly closed to them, like the courts, to assert
rights they considered part of citizenship. Many ex-slaves rushed to formalize their

Watch the Video The Schools that the Civil War and Reconstruction Created

FReeDmen’S SCHoolS A Freedmen’s school, one of the more successful endeavors the Freedmen’s Bureau
supported. the bureau, working with teachers from northern abolitionist and missionary societies, founded
thousands of schools for freed slaves and poor whites.
368