arkansas
Reconstruction Vignette
| In several counties, local bureau agents reported employers' efforts to defraud freedpeople working on shares when the time came to divide up crops and settle debts. In others, landowners and laborers argued over pay for work done on plantations after crops were “laid by.” In addition to poverty and labor conflict, in many areas freedpeople were terrorized by the violence of white “lawless characters” given free rein by local law enforcement officials, still in place in practice even if now subordinate to federal military authority. Under these circumstances, freedpeople sought an effective voice in governmental affairs to free themselves from the crush of landlords’ control, to address economic exploitation, and to protect their communities from violence. Political mobilization had, of course, a clear and practical end. |
In 1866 and 1867, poor weather and inadequate crop yields in Arkansas deepened debts and disputes over unpaid wages. Mass political mobilization was critical to uplifting and empowering Black communities in the public sphere.
Source: Terror in the Heart of Freedom: Citizenship, Sexual Violence, and the Meaning of Race in the Postemancipation South by Hannah Rosen
Arkansas
Standards Overview
Coverage of Reconstruction: Partial
ZEP Standards Rubric Score: 4 out of 10
The coverage of Reconstruction in Arkansas’ standards is partial, and their content is mediocre. The Arkansas Department of Education adopted the current Social Studies Curriculum Framework in 2014. The Social Studies Framework is currently under review and is expected to be completed in 2022. The Framework revision will include support materials and resources for teachers. As a local-control state, curriculum is largely up to schools and districts.
Under the current framework, students are supposed to learn about Reconstruction in middle school and high school.
Grade 7-8
The social studies course on Arkansas history is organized thematically in the areas of geography, economics, civics and government, and history. The history section chronologically spans precolonial to contemporary times.
The standards expect students to “examine the effects of Reconstruction in Arkansas using multiple, relevant historical sources.” Examples include: “The Brooks-Baxter War and Arkansas State Constitution of 1874” and “The Freedmen’s Bureau, sharecropping, and segregation laws.”
Grade 8
The social studies course spans U.S. history, 1800–1900. Reconstruction is grouped under a section called “Civil War and Reconstruction, 1850–1877.” Just one of the unit’s six standards focuses on Reconstruction, with students expected to “evaluate successes and failures of Reconstruction.”
Examples for this standard include:
The Reconstruction Amendments (listed as “Civil War Amendments”)
Presidential vs. Congressional Reconstruction Plans
Black people’s “economic positions, sharecropping, crop liens”
Black people’s political mobilizations, particularly in public education and the role of Black officeholders
High School
The high school course in U.S. history spans 1890 to the present. This course does not include a review of Reconstruction.
The high school course on Arkansas history covers the precolonial period to contemporary times. The standards group Reconstruction under a section called “Civil War Through the Gilded Age 1861–1900.”
The standard that covers Reconstruction is the same as the standard in the earlier Arkansas history course taught in grades 7-8. Standards expect students to “examine the effects of Reconstruction in Arkansas using multiple, relevant historical sources.”
The optional high school course on African American History covers the colonial period to the present.
Standards require students to:
Analyze the responses of free and enslaved African American men and women to regional social, economic, and political conditions during the Civil War and Reconstruction Era.
Analyze the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution and the effects on African American men and women between 1877 and 1920.
Educator Experiences
Some teachers in Arkansas are taking it upon themselves to teach Reconstruction in a more meaningful way. Teachers who responded to our survey noted that they learned about Reconstruction primarily through their own reading and research. A few mentioned they had learned about Reconstruction in college courses. One teacher noted that some professional development workshops included resources on teaching Reconstruction.
According to the responses to our survey, teachers seeking to enrich and expand teaching on Reconstruction have mostly acted independently, without institutional support. As such, educators noted lack of time and readily available resources as barriers to teaching Reconstruction in the classroom. One high school social studies teacher said they would like support finding “primary sources that are easy to come across” and assistance on “how to read [the sources] and engage in them.”
When it comes to Reconstruction, Arkansas teachers strive to go beyond the traditional textbook. Teachers said they have drawn on resources like: PBS’s “Reconstruction: America After the Civil War” documentary; lessons from the Facing History’s unit on “The Reconstruction Era and Fragility of Democracy”; teaching activities from the Zinn Education Project like “Reconstructing the South: A Role Play”; and other digital resources. Teachers also mentioned that they used lessons that centered primary sources or incorporated field trips to Reconstruction-era historical sites like a Freedmen’s Village. Others had students focus their National History Day projects on Reconstruction.
Assessment
The current Social Studies Curriculum Framework generally offers a traditional top-down narrative of the history of Reconstruction that focuses mainly on government and politics. In the core courses, the Framework mentions Black people primarily in relation to officeholding and sharecropping. Black people’s reactions and actions during Reconstruction are well covered in the high school African American History course, but it is not a required course.
In grade 8, the Framework notes students should “evaluate the success and failures of Reconstruction.” This framing underemphasizes white backlash to and repression of Reconstruction — such as the passage of Black Codes and Jim Crow laws — and the larger role of white supremacy in its overthrow.
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.
In May 2021, Gov. Asa Hutchinson allowed SB627 to become law, though he withheld his signature in a gesture of disapproval. The law bans state agencies, including the Department of Education, from teaching “divisive concepts.” This includes the concept that “Any individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race or sex.” In early 2023, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed an executive order to prohibit critical race theory or “indoctrination” from schools. She also signed the LEARNS Act, which requires the state education department to review and amend rules or materials that promote "indoctrination" or critical race theory.
Several respondents to our survey expressed concern about the possible chilling effects on classroom education that such measures can have, particularly on discussions of the history and legacies of Reconstruction.