05.04 DBQ Practice: Reconstruction and Its Impact on U.S. Society
This assignment is a Document-Based Question (DBQ) practice for AP U.S. History. You will analyze a series of primary source documents related to the Reconstruction era and its effects on United States society from 1865 to 1900. Your response should address the prompt and incorporate evidence from the documents provided.
Group 1
Use the following documents to answer the DBQ prompt. Analyze the documents for their content, point of view, and historical context.
Source 1.1
Source: The Misses Cooke’s School Room, Freedmen’s Bureau, published in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, 1866.
Source 1.2
Source: Frances Butler Leigh, former slaveholder, letter to a friend in England, 1867.
The true reason is the desire and intention of the [federal] Government to control the elections of the South, which under the constitution of the country they could not legally do. So they have determined to make an excuse for setting aside the laws, ... each commander in his separate district has issued an order declaring that unless a man can take an oath that he had not voluntarily borne arms against the United States Government, nor in any way aided or abetted the rebellion, he cannot vote. This simply disqualifies every white man at the South from voting, disfranchising the whole white population, while the negroes are allowed to vote en masse.
Frances Butler Leigh, letter, 1867
Source 1.3
Source: Major General J. J. Reynolds, report to the United States secretary of war, 1868.
Armed organizations, generally known as “Ku-Klux Klans,” exist, independently or in concert with other armed bands, in many parts of Texas, but are most numerous, bold, and aggressive east of Trinity River [in eastern Texas].
The precise objects of the organizations cannot be readily explained, but seems, in this state, to be to disarm, rob, and in many cases murder Union men and negroes, and as occasion may offer, murder United States officers and soldiers; also to intimidate every one who knows anything of the organization but who will not join it. ...
To restore measurable peace and quiet to Texas will require ... that troops be stationed at many county seats. ... This will be the work of years.
Major General J. J. Reynolds, report, 1868
Source 1.4
Source: Fifteenth Amendment, 1870.
Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Fifteenth Amendment, 1870
Source 1.5
Source: James T. Rapier, African American congressman from Alabama, speech supporting the Civil Rights Act of 1875, delivered in the House of Representatives, 1874.
I had hoped there would be no protracted discussion on the civil-rights bill. ...
... But the ... supremely ridiculous position of the Negro at this time ... compels me to say something. Here his condition is without comparison, parallel alone to itself. Just that the law recognizes my right upon this floor [in Congress] as a law-maker, but that there is no law to secure to me any accommodations whatever while traveling here to discharge my duties as a Representative of a large and wealthy constituency. Here I am the peer of the proudest, but on a steamboat or [railroad] car I am not equal to the most degraded.
James T. Rapier, speech, 1874
Source 1.6
Source: Ferdinand L. Barnett, African American lawyer, addressing the National Conference of the Colored Men of the United States in Nashville, Tennessee, 1879.
Race elevation [of African Americans] can be attained only through race unity. ... It is a general enlightenment [through education] of the race which must engage our noblest powers. ...
... By concerted action great results can be accomplished. ... [Our schools] furnish the surest and swiftest means in our power of obtaining knowledge, confidence and respect. There is no satisfactory reason why all children who seek instruction should not have full and equal privileges, but law has been so perverted in many places, North and South, that sanction is given to separate schools; a pernicious [harmful] system of discrimination which invariably operates to the disadvantage of the colored race.
Ferdinand L. Barnett, address, 1879
Source 1.7
Source: Interior of Negro Building, Atlanta Exposition, photograph of an exhibition space for African American artists and performers at the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia, 1895.
Question 1a
Evaluate the extent to which Reconstruction changed United States society in the period from 1865 to 1900. In your response, you will be assessed on the following:
- Respond to the prompt with a historically defensible thesis or claim that establishes a line of reasoning.
- Describe a broader historical context relevant to the prompt.
- Support an argument in response to the prompt using at least four documents.
- Use at least one additional piece of specific historical evidence (beyond that found in the documents) relevant to an argument about the prompt.
- For at least two documents, explain how or why the document’s point of view, purpose, historical situation, and/or audience is relevant to an argument.
- Demonstrate a complex understanding of a historical development related to the prompt through sophisticated argumentation and/or effective use of evidence.
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