5.11 The Failure of Reconstruction - Foner & McPherson

“The era of emancipation and Republican rule did not lack enduring accomplishments. The tide of change rose and then receded, but it left behind an altered landscape. The freedmen’s political and civil equality proved transitory, but the autonomous black family and a network of religious and social institutions survived Reconstruction. Nor could the seeds of educational progress planted then be entirely uprooted… Without Reconstruction, it is difficult to imagine the establishment of a framework of legal rights enshrined in the Constitution that, while flagrantly violated after 1877, created a vehicle for future federal intervention in Southern affairs. Nevertheless, whether measured by the dreams inspired by emancipation or the more limited goals of securing blacks’ rights as citizens and free laborers and establish an enduring Republican presence in the South, Reconstruction must be judged a failure.”

• Eric Foner, historian, 1988.

"Viewed from the standpoint of 1865 the rate of literacy for blacks increased by 200 percent in fifteen years and by 400 percent in thirty-five years. This was significant change. Or take another set educational data: in 1860 only 2 percent of the black children of school age in the United /states were attending school. By 1880 this had increased to 34 percent… In 1865 few blacks owned land in the South. But by 1880, 20 percent of the black farm operators owned part or all of the land they farmed (the rest were renters or sharecroppers). By 1910, 25 percent of the black farmers owned land… The events of the 1860s in the United States… deserve the label revolution. It also was followed by a counterrevolution, which combined white violence in the South with a revival of the Democratic party in the North and a growing indifference of northern Republicans toward the plight of southern blacks. The counter revolution overthrew the fledgling experiment in racial equality. But it did not fully restore the old order.”

• James McPherson, historian, 1990.