Expanding Democracy

Lesson Plan

Activity 1: Reflect on the Dramatic Changes Brought by Reconstruction

Before beginning the lesson, ask students to reflect on the revolutionary and unprecedented nature of granting political and civil rights to millions of people who two years prior were enslaved. Ask students to write a short response to the following quotation by historian Eric Foner, which you can project or write on the board:

Never before in history had so large a group of emancipated slaves suddenly achieved political and civil rights. And the coming of black suffrage in the South in 1867 inspired a sense of millennial possibility second only to emancipation itself. Former slaves now stood on equal footing with whites, declared a speaker at a mass meeting in Savannah; before them lay “a field, too vast for contemplation.”

In their responses, students might reflect on what effects they think granting citizenship and the ability to vote to Black men will have on the lives of individual freedpeople, the South, and the nation as a whole. After students have spent a few minutes recording their thoughts, use the Think, Pair, Share teaching strategy to help them discuss their ideas about these questions with each other.

Activity 2: Evaluating the Effects of Radical Reconstruction

Tell students that they will now be examining the effect that the expansion of citizenship and voting rights had on democracy in the United States. 

Break the class into groups of 3–4 students. Explain to students that they will be looking at documents related to the impact of the Reconstruction laws and amendments they learned about in the previous lesson. Share the following prompt with students: In the last lesson, you learned about several laws and amendments passed by Republicans in Congress during Reconstruction, including the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Reconstruction Acts of 1867. What impact did these laws have?

Explain to students that in their small groups, they should underline evidence from their assigned document(s) that helps them to answer the above question. Have each group explore the following documents:

• Group 1: Black Officeholders in the South and The First South Carolina Legislature after the 1867 Reconstruction Acts 
• Group 2: The Honoured Representative of Four Millions of Colored People
• Group 3: Reconstructing Mississippi
• Group 4: Improving Education in South Carolina

After each group has read and underlined their assigned document, have groups report their findings to the class. Each group should share a summary of their document, how they would answer the prompt based on what they read, and 2–3 pieces of evidence that support their argument.

Activity 3: Reflect on the Impact of Radical Reconstruction on the Health of Democracy in the United States

After each group has shared, give each student a notecard. Have each student write a newspaper headline at the top of the card that captures how the Radical Reconstruction laws and amendments affected the health of democracy in the United States. Explain that a good headline usually summarizes an idea or event in 12 words or less. Alternatively, you might have students compose a Tweet (which is 140 characters or less).

Below their headlines, have students list three pieces of evidence they recorded from the documents and statistics that support or explain their headline. Ask students to share their headlines with a partner in a Think, Pair, Share.