Oklahoma
Reconstruction Vignette
| The establishment of churches and schools symbolized the determination of Indian freedpeople to create their own communities in the face of threats and violence during this liminal period in which they waited to be adopted as citizens of Indian nations and find out whether they would receive land they had applied for. Both their land and their citizenship depended on the Five Tribes and the United States upholding their treaty promises to them. These schools and churches formed the crux of communities that emphasized Black autonomy, allowing Indian freedpeople to create Black spaces within Indian nations. |
“Indian freedpeople” refers to Black people formerly enslaved by members of the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Cherokee, Creek, and Seminole Nations. Known together as the Five Tribes, these Indigenous nations attempted to maintain sovereignty and slavery in present-day Oklahoma after the Civil War, as the U.S. government encroached and forced legal emancipation. Within this struggle, Indian freedpeople navigated a liminal space between the reality of their enslavement and the promise of true liberation. They understood access to land as critical to tangible, sustainable freedom, pursuing tribal citizenship, negotiating with U.S. officials, and organizing their kinship networks to claim land. In this region, unlike many others, these efforts often succeeded.
Source: I've Been Here All the While: Black Freedom on Native Land by Alaina E. Roberts
Oklahoma
Standards Overview
Coverage of Reconstruction: Partial
ZEP Standards Rubric Score: 3.5 out of 10
The coverage of Reconstruction in Oklahoma’s standards is partial, and their content is subpar. The Oklahoma State Department of Education adopted the current social studies state standards in 2019. According to these standards, Reconstruction is taught in grade 8 and briefly in high school.
Grade 8
The overarching standard in the middle school course is for students to “analyze the political, social, and economic transformations during the Reconstruction Era to 1877.”
The political standards focus on comparing the Congressional and Presidential Reconstruction plans, analyzing legislation including the Reconstruction Amendments, the Black Codes, and the establishment of the Freedmen’s Bureau, and learning about the “election of Blacks to government positions.”
The social and economic components are framed around comparing “the emerging social structure of the South.” This includes the “influx of carpetbaggers and scalawags,” the “rise of the KKK and its acts of intimidation and violence,” and the “expansion of the tenant and sharecropper systems, and migration of former slaves.” The standards emphasize the importance of the presidential election of 1876 to the end of Reconstruction, but also reference the “loss of enforcement of the 14th and 15th Amendments.”
Standards also mention the impact of Reconstruction on Native people in Oklahoma in a course on the history of Oklahoma.
High School
The first unit of the high school U.S. history course covers Reconstruction and its aftermath, framing the unit around analysis of “the post-Reconstruction civil rights struggles.”
The course contains three relevant learning objectives:
Identify the significance of Juneteenth in relation to emancipation and modern-day celebrations.
Examine the purposes and effects of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments.
Assess the impact of the Black Codes, Jim Crow laws, and the actions of the Ku Klux Klan.
Educator Experiences
A school district curriculum coordinator wrote to us about what they think is needed in Oklahoma: “Persuading teachers to restructure pacing guides so that there is time at the end of the school year to teach Reconstruction. In Oklahoma, U.S. history to 1877 is taught in 8th grade. Inadequate pacing planning can lead to shortchanging this critical period of U.S. history. I don't think curriculum materials adequately discuss Reconstruction’s failures and the lasting impact on race relations and civil rights.”
We also heard from a middle school teacher who works at a private school and is free to plan her own curriculum. She uses primary source materials as often as possible to encourage students to think critically about the sources they absorb. The head of her department, however, discourages truthful teaching. This teacher reported: “I have to tread carefully as I do this work, or else they’ll find someone else to do it, who may not have racial justice in mind as they teach American history.”
Assessment
Oklahoma’s state standards on Reconstruction are brief and contain some concepts derived from the debunked and white supremacist Dunning School of Reconstruction historiography. The discussion of carpetbaggers and scalawags in comparison to the KKK is a particularly flawed approach that conceals Black political activism and achievements during Reconstruction. The standards are also largely framed around national politics and Southern white backlash instead of centering Black people’s agency and advancements. At times, they also use passive voice in a way that obscures the subjects who actively dismantled or abandoned the project of Reconstruction.
However, the standards do offer a more comprehensive history of the era than many other states. References to Black officeholding, Juneteenth, the Reconstruction Amendments, and internal migration are welcome but should be expanded.
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. Kevin Stitt signed into law HB1775, a bill that prohibits teaching about systemic racism and sexism. In 2022 and 2023, Republican lawmakers introduced similar bills that failed to pass. Several respondents to our survey expressed concern about the possible chilling effects on classroom education that such laws can have around the country, particularly on discussions of the history and legacies of Reconstruction.