Was Reconstruction Radical?
YES -- Radical
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NO – Not Radical
Helped educate – created public
• Same planter elite stayed in
schools for the first time (over
control
200,000 blacks taught to read)
Enabled new black support
• No redistribution of wealth to
groups to empower blacks
reimburse freedmen for the
(churches, self-improvement
labor that whites had stolen
societies, and schools)
blacks they were slaves
Initially provided a minimum of
welfare support
• Sharecropper economy grows
Took over state & local
governments through the military • Didn’t stop white supremacist
reconstruction
terrorism
Created property rights for
• Didn’t protect the right to vote
women
for blacks
Created civil liberties through the
14th Amendment
• Didn’t even create the right to
Guaranteed the black vote
vote for women
through the 15th Amendment