Lesson Plan – Citizenship During and After the Reconstruction Era

Black Americans understood the meaning of citizenship and the possibilities afforded by the prospect of emancipation long before the end of the Civil War. Among their demands for equality was the right to participate in the political process as voters. Black men in Virginia used their political voice once they secured the vote, but white legislators slowly worked to disfranchise Black voters, first through illegal means, and then by including disfranchisement in the 1902 Constitution. Their efforts to stifle Black men’s participation also affected white citizens, and Virginia had one of the lowest voter participation rates in the United States until the mid-1960s.

In places where the United States Army controlled territory during the Civil War, Black men organized to demand suffrage. In Norfolk, for example, Black men established the Colored Monitor Union Club early in 1865 to safeguard their interests and demand participation in politics including the right to vote. Other pro-suffrage groups emerged around the commonwealth, much to the concern of many white people. In May 1865 more than 1,000 Black men in Norfolk voted for representatives to the General Assembly. They had no legal authorization to do so, and in most precincts white election officials refused to count their votes. After this incident, the Colored Monitor Union Club published its demand for equal suffrage as a right of citizenship.

As a result of white southern legislatures refusing to recognize the equal rights of Black people—in employment, voting, education, or any other aspect of society—Congress passed laws in 1867 known as the Reconstruction Acts. These acts put the governments of southern states under military control until they agreed to ratify the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, which guaranteed Black men citizenship and the right to vote, and required that former Confederate states adopt new state constitutions that promoted equality. For the first time in Virginia—under the protection of the U.S. military and the Freedmen’s Bureau—Black men came out to vote in October 1867 for delegates to the convention that would write a new constitution. More than 105,000 Black men registered to vote. In the election for representatives to the convention, Black men outnumbered white male voters. The constitution crafted by the delegates, twenty-four of whom were Black, included significant reforms such as universal male suffrage and the creation of a statewide public school system.

In 1869, when the new constitution was ratified, thirty Black men won election to the General Assembly. However, white legislators always remained the majority and the Conservative Party rolled back reforms, even as between eighteen and twenty Black men won seats in the Assembly during each of the next three sessions in the 1870s. 

Conservatives stayed in power for much of the last quarter of the nineteenth century and pushed through an amendment to Virginia's constitution designed to disfranchise Black men—a poll tax. The Conservatives were out of power for a brief period between 1879 and 1883, when the short-lived bi-racial Readjuster Party won the governorship and control of the General Assembly. They were called Readjusters because of their desire to restructure (or "readjust") the way the government paid off its debt incurred for internal improvements such as turnpikes and canals that were built before the Civil War. Paying the debt caused the state to dramatically decrease funding for public schools and other services, which upset many Black and white Virginians. The Readjusters succeeded in changing the debt payment schedule and restored funding to education and other improvements. They also repealed the poll tax and created the first public college (now Virginia State University) for Black men and women.

The brief Readjuster period marked the end of Black political power in Virginia until after the 1960s. When the Conservatives, now affiliated with the national Democratic Party, took control of the General Assembly again they passed the Anderson-McCormick Act in 1884. This allowed the legislators to appoint all election officials and special election judges. The result was large-scale election fraud, as U.S. Senator and former Readjuster leader William Mahone discussed in his 1885 letter. The conservatives stuffed ballot boxes, threw out Republican ballots, and forced Black voters to wait in long lines to prevent them from casting ballots.

By the start of the twentieth century, white legislators sought to further restrict voting through revisions to the state constitution at a convention that met in 1901–1902. Delegate Carter Glass, the architect of the voting section, explained that the new poll tax and understanding clause (essentially a biased literacy test) would legally disfranchise Black people. But John Mitchell Jr., the outspoken Black editor of the Richmond Planet, correctly explained that the restrictions would also hurt white men. As a result of the restrictions in the 1902 Constitution, Virginia lost fifty percent of its electorate overall, and ninety percent of Black men could not vote because of the hefty poll tax requirement.

For a time after the Civil War Black men exercised their right to vote on the same terms as white men, but white politicians were determined to roll back these gains. The resulting disfranchisement affected Black and white citizens alike until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlawed many discriminatory voting practices and the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Harper v. Virginia outlawed poll taxes in all elections in 1966.

These primary source documents found in Document Bank of Virginia can be used together to understand the Reconstruction era and Black citizenship. They are attached to this lesson plan as pdfs in the Files. Find more information about each document at the individual Document Bank entry link:

Equal Suffrage Address, 1865 (excerpt):
https://edu.lva.virginia.gov/dbva/items/show/306

The First Vote, 1867:
https://edu.lva.virginia.gov/dbva/items/show/102

Legislature of Virginia, Photograph, 1871:
https://edu.lva.virginia.gov/dbva/items/show/178

William Mahone Writes about Election Fraud, 1885:
https://edu.lva.virginia.gov/dbva/items/show/312

Voting Rights and the Virginia Constitution of 1902: 
https://edu.lva.virginia.gov/dbva/items/show/338

VS.8, CE.6, CE.8, VUS.9, USII.2, USII.5, GOVT.6

Goals and Guiding Principles:
Through this lesson students will be able to explain the effects of Reconstruction and the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment on citizenship. They will be able to identify the effects of Virginia’s 1870 Constitution and Readjuster Party and be able to describe how Black men gained and then lost political power during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. They will understand how civic participation addressed community needs and served the public good, even as some citizens tried to stifle equal participation. They will explore how Black leaders emerged, and how they fought against the rise of disfranchisement. Students will understand the importance of political parties in creating change.

Story Map (15 minutes depending on level of complexity) 
VS, CE, USII, VUS, GOVT

Using the documents, create a story map of Black men’s suffrage between 1865 and 1902. Based on the documents, come up with a few key characters. Who are the protagonists in the story, and who are the antagonists? What do the characters want, and how do they achieve it?  What challenges did the protagonists face? What is the arc of this story, and how does it end?

 
The Wheel of Reasoning (20-30 minutes) 
USII, CE, VUS, GOVT

Construct a wheel with these eight “slices” and answer the questions below:

1. Identify the key issue at hand for Black men based on the documents you have read.
2. Identify the purpose of the Equal Suffrage Address and the “First Vote” lithograph. What were the points the authors/illustrators were trying to make?
3. What was the evidence that supported the idea that Black men were ready, able, and willing to participate in the political process?
4. What assumptions did many white politicians make about Black voters, based on their actions? Were these assumptions supported by evidence? Why or why not?
5. What were the two points of view here in this collection of documents? What were the author’s/illustrator’s frames of reference—what experiences would they have had that informed their points of view?
6. What were the concepts presented by the authors who had opposing points of view? What were the key theories/ideas each side presented? Were those concepts logical? Why or why not? 
7. What were the consequences of each side’s position/argument? What were the implications of each side’s position?
8. What are the inferences you have made about the issue of citizenship and Black voting based on the material you read, and why?

 

Exploring the Images (15 minutes) 
VS, USII

Look at “The First Vote” lithograph and the 1871 Legislature of Virginia composite photograph. How would you describe what the men are wearing in these images?  What might you think about their status based on what they are wearing? How does the lithograph differ from the images of the men in the composite, and why might that be? What do you think the illustrator of the lithograph was trying to say with his art? What do you think the legislators were trying to say with their dress and their demeanor?

 

Exit Ticket: (10-20 minutes, based on the age of the student)
VS, CE, USII, VUS, GOVT

• Name three things you learned from these documents.
• Name one thing that surprised you.
• Rate your confidence level for explaining what happened with Black men and the vote in Virginia from 1865-1902 (level 1=least confident, level 5=most confident).  What would you like to know more about?
• How is what you learned from these sources relevant today?