District of Columbia
Reconstruction Vignette
In January of 1869, representatives from Black communities around the country gathered in Washington, D.C., for a national convention. Delegates analyzed and debated a number of issues tied to the promise of freedom, including labor and land rights, access to quality education, political and legal representation, and the role of the Black press in the advocacy and advancement of multiracial democracy. The meeting in D.C. built on decades of discussions in the Colored Conventions movement, formed in 1830. Notably, women appear prominently in this sketch of the January 1869 convention. Despite their critical roles in these spaces and the wider Black freedom movement, they were often relegated to the margins of meeting minutes and proceedings.
Source: Library of Congress
District of Columbia
Standards Overview
Coverage of Reconstruction: Extensive
ZEP Standards Rubric Score: 6.5 out of 10
The coverage of Reconstruction in the District of Columbia’s standards is extensive, and their content is approaching adequate. The D.C. State Board of Education adopted the current social studies standards in 2006. According to these standards, Reconstruction is taught in grades 5, 8, 11, and 12.
A committee is currently working on revising the social studies standards with a focus on improving coverage of racial justice and D.C. history. The new standards are expected to be completed in 2022.
Grade 5
In grade 5, the standards are organized broadly around the “successes and failures of Reconstruction.” Required topics in this unit cover extensive details about Black people’s activism and advocacy and white supremacist violent opposition. Notably, they also name specific people to study:
Describe the physical and economic destruction of the South.
Describe the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in Washington, DC.
Identify the goals and accomplishments of the Freedmen’s Bureau.
Describe the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, as well as African American political and economic progress.
Analyze the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, Black Codes, vigilante justice, and Jim Crow laws.
Analyze the emergence of African American self-help organizations, emigration to all-Black towns in the West (e.g., the Exodusters), and the call for reparations by formerly enslaved leaders (e.g., Isaiah Dickerson, Callie House, and the ex-slave pension and mutual relief association).
Grade 8
The grade 8 standards ask students to “analyze the character and lasting consequences of Reconstruction.” In addition to revisiting what they learned in grade 5, they examine how Northerners helped to dismantle Reconstruction, the significance of the Reconstruction Amendments, and the nature of white supremacist violence:
Explain the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the Constitution and their connection to Reconstruction.
List and describe the original aims of Reconstruction (e.g., to reunify the nation) and its effects on the political and social structures of different regions.
Explain the effects of the Freedmen’s Bureau and the restrictions placed on the rights and opportunities of freedmen, including racial segregation and Jim Crow laws.
Trace the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and vigilante justice.
Explain the movement of both white Northern entrepreneurs (carpetbaggers) and Black Yankees from the North to the South and their reasons for doing so.
Explain the push-pull factors in the movement of former slaves to the cities in the North and to the West and their differing experiences in those regions (e.g., the experiences of Buffalo Soldiers and the Exodusters).
Outline the pulling out of the federal army and its troops from the South due to an agreement negotiated by a bipartisan Congressional Commission, thus ending Reconstruction.
High School
The grade 11 U.S. history course mentions Reconstruction only briefly, with a requirement within a unit on “The Rise of Industrial America” that students should be able to “explain the impact of the Hayes-Tilden presidential election of 1876 and the end of reconstruction on African Americans (i.e., the rise of Jim Crow laws, lynching, the First Great Migration).”
The grade 12 course on “District of Columbia History and Government” contains a unit on the “Reconstruction Period.” The unit situates Reconstruction within the specific context of Washington, D.C. and mentions the Freedmen’s Bureau, Howard University, and several Black local civil rights leaders.
Educator Experiences
D.C. teachers who responded to our survey emphasized that although the standards did not provide content barriers to teaching Reconstruction, the limited coverage of Reconstruction in high school posed a serious problem.
As Karen Lee, a high school social studies teacher and department chair, explained, the only reference to Reconstruction in the grade 11 U.S. history course is “lumped in with a bunch of other ones to just make up one unit.” This approach, Lee explained, “assumes that students learn it in 8th grade but students either don’t retain the material or it was never actually taught.”
Other middle and high school teachers explained that time pressure was a significant factor in reducing their teaching of Reconstruction. Some felt that even the middle school standards provided insufficient depth on the topic. Several teachers reported using outside resources, including the ZEP Reconstruction Mixer and a DBQ on the end of Reconstruction.
Amy Trenkle, a middle school teacher in D.C., used the ZEP Make Reconstruction Visible project to complete the Reconstruction unit. Students learned about the history of Reconstruction in D.C. and throughout the country, but they also practiced connecting those historical lessons to contemporary events. One student explained that they learned how “Reconstruction made D.C. a more diverse community and made it how it is today.” Yet even with a dedicated unit on the subject, one student expressed: “I think that we could’ve spent more time on Reconstruction. . . I feel like Reconstruction helps develop what we think of the country more than the Civil War does.”
Assessment
D.C.’s Reconstruction standards are relatively robust. Moving through each grade level, the standards build on each other in complexity, introducing new aspects of Reconstruction history as students move up. Students most closely study Reconstruction in grades 5 and 8. The standards in those years are excellent, covering many critical topics including Black people’s efforts to gain and define freedom, political activism and leadership, and white supremacist violence.
The D.C. State Board of Education should build on the strong foundation for teaching Reconstruction in the current standards. In the grade 5 and 8 standards, more content is needed that emphasizes Black people’s struggles for autonomy, especially around labor and land. A broader discussion of the positive and negative legacies of Reconstruction today would also be welcome.
Coverage of Reconstruction in high school is far less extensive and should be improved in the new standards expected in 2022. Grouping Reconstruction under the “Rise of Industrial America” unit is ineffective. Reconstruction should be its own unit of instruction in that course to discourage teachers who may think the topic was sufficiently taught in earlier grades from skipping it.
Teaching Reconstruction effectively requires centering Black people’s struggles to redefine freedom and equality and gain control of their own land and labor during and after the Civil War. Any discussion of Reconstruction must also grapple with the role of white supremacist terrorism in the defeat of Reconstruction and the negative and positive legacies of the era that persist to this day.
moments in Reconstruction history
This short list of events in the District of Columbia’s Reconstruction history is from the Zinn Education Project This Day in History collection. Note that many of these stories are national events that took place in D.C. due to the location of the federal government. We welcome your suggestions for more.
Sept. 1862 Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation
Abraham Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.
Jan. 1863 Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation took effect in 1863. Who did it “emancipate”? And who gets credited?
Dec. 1865 Ex-Confederate States Blocked From Joining 39th Congress
After the Civil War, representatives from states recently in rebellion were blocked from being sworn-in at the 39th Congress.
Feb. 1866 Thaddeus Stevens Proposes Land Distribution Amendment
Congressman Thaddeus Stevens offered an amendment to the Freedmen's Bureau Bill to authorize the distribution of public land.
June 1866 14th Amendment Passed
The 14th Amendment to the Constitution was passed, granting citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States.”
Feb. 1868 President Andrew Johnson Impeached by House
President Andrew Johnson was impeached by the House of Representatives in response to his pardons of former Confederates, his hampering of the Reconstruction Acts, and his public defiance of the Radical Republicans.
Feb. 1870 15th Amendment Ratified
The 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution officially granted African American men the right to vote.
Feb. 1870 Hiram Revels Sworn into Office
Hiram Revels was sworn into office as senator from Mississippi, becoming the first African American to serve in the U.S. Senate.
Jan. 1874 Robert B. Elliott Spoke of Need for Civil Rights Act
Rep. Robert B. Elliott gave speech to advocate for Civil Rights Act which passed a year later.
March 1877 Hayes Takes Office in 1877 Compromise
Rutherford Hayes became the 19th President of the U.S. with a devastating impact on Reconstruction.
May 1881 Blanche K. Bruce Became Register of the Treasury
Blanche K. Bruce became Register of the Treasury, which placed his name on all U.S. currency.