Tennessee
Reconstruction Vignette
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On April 28, 1866, a Black couple formalized their marriage in Lebanon, Tennessee. Thomas Harris and Jane Harris (Shute) had lived and raised a family together for almost 15 years, but could not legally marry until Reconstruction. This marriage certificate from the Freedmen’s Bureau notes their commitment predating the Civil War, as well as the names and birth dates of their nine children.
Tennessee
Standards Overview
Coverage of Reconstruction: Extensive
ZEP Standards Rubric Score: 4 out of 10
The coverage of Reconstruction in Tennessee’s standards is extensive, and their content is mediocre. It is worth noting that much of the strongest coverage of Reconstruction in the Tennessee standards appears in optional history courses. The Tennessee State Board of Education approved the current social studies standards in 2017. It is up to districts to create and implement curriculum.
Grade 4
The grade 4 course is The History of the United States: Revolution to Reconstruction. As the title suggests, it spans the Revolution to Reconstruction. Reconstruction is grouped with the Civil War, though the focus is primarily on the war itself. There are 12 standards in the section on the Civil War and Reconstruction, and three of those standards are related to Reconstruction.
The standards expect students to:
Identify the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments as efforts to help former slaves begin a new life.
Compare and contrast the Reconstruction plans of Pres. Abraham Lincoln, Pres. Andrew Johnson, and Congress.
Examine the significance of the Compromise of 1877.
Grade 5
The course on Tennessee History spans the colonial era to the present. Reconstruction is grouped with the Civil War in a section where students examine “Tennessee history prior to the Civil War as well as the impact of the Civil War and Reconstruction on the state.” In this section, there are six standards related to the Civil War and Reconstruction, and four of the six focus specifically on Reconstruction.
The standards expect students to:
Explain the impact of the Tennessee Constitutional Convention of 1870, including poll taxes, segregation, and funds for public education.
Explain the development and efforts of the Freedmen’s Bureau in helping former slaves begin a new life, including Fisk University.
Identify how the rise of vigilante justice (e.g., Ku Klux Klan), Black Codes, and Jim Crow laws impacted Tennessee and the nation.
Explain how the end of Reconstruction impacted Tennessee’s African American elected officials.
Grade 8
The course on United States History and Geography: Colonization of North America to Reconstruction covers the colonial era to Reconstruction. Reconstruction is included in its own section with eight distinct standards.
The standards expect students to:
Analyze the immediate political impact of the assassination of Pres. Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson’s ascension to the presidency.
Explain the significance of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
Analyze Pres. Abraham Lincoln’s Ten Percent Plan, Pres. Andrew Johnson’s Plan, and the Radical Republican Plan for Reconstruction.
Identify the significance of the Tennessee Constitution of 1870, including the right of all men to vote and the establishment of a poll tax.
Analyze the conflict between Pres. Andrew Johnson and the Radical Republicans, including Johnson’s veto of the Tenure of Office Act and his impeachment.
Explain the restrictions placed on the rights and opportunities of freedmen, including: racial segregation, Black Codes, and the efforts of the Freedmen’s Bureau to address the problems confronting newly freed slaves.
Trace the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and vigilante justice in the South and in Tennessee, including the role of Gov. William Brownlow.
Explain the roles carpetbaggers and scalawags played during Reconstruction.
Explain the Compromise of 1877 and its role in ending Radical Reconstruction.
High School
There is an elective African American History that spans from the early 1600s through the contemporary time. Reconstruction is grouped with the Civil War in a section on “African Americans during the Civil War and Reconstruction.” There are six standards in the section and four deal with Reconstruction.
The standards expect students to:
Describe the changing status of slaves, freed slaves, and free Blacks during and after the Civil War.
Identify reasons for and effects of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments on African Americans.
Analyze the effects of Reconstruction on the legal, political, social, cultural, educational, and economic life of freedmen.
Assess the successes and failures of Reconstruction as they relate to African Americans.
There is also a separate section in the African American History course on “African American Life after Emancipation through World War I (1890s–1920s)” that does not directly mention Reconstruction but deals with many of the themes from the Reconstruction era, including standards that expect students to:
Assess the economic and social impact of Jim Crow laws on African Americans.
Compare and contrast organized responses to Jim Crow laws (e.g., the Niagara Movement, the NAACP, the Urban League, the Atlanta compromise, the Farmers’ Alliance, Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, and the antilynching crusade).
Describe the progress of African American institutions, such as religion, education, and benevolent organizations, during this era.
Describe the economic, cultural, political, and social impact of African American migration within and from the South (e.g., Exodusters, Benjamin “Pap” Singleton, First Great Migration).
There is an elective high school course on Tennessee history that spans the precolonial era to the present. Reconstruction is included in its own section including eight standards.
Standards expect students to:
Describe how the Civil War impacted various populations in Tennessee (e.g., African Americans, American Indians, and women).
Explain William Brownlow’s role in the development of Reconstruction.
Discuss the impeachment of Pres. Andrew Johnson and its impact both nationally and in Tennessee.
Describe the rise, influence, and opposition of the Ku Klux Klan in Tennessee.
Explain the development and efforts of the Freedmen’s Bureau schools, including Fisk University.
Identify early elected Black lawmakers and leaders in Tennessee (e.g., Sampson Keeble and William Yardley), and determine their significance.
Explain the development of the 1870 Tennessee Constitution.
Identify exodusters (e.g., Benjamin “Pap” Singleton), and describe their experiences.
The Tennessee History course includes a section on the post-Reconstruction era that actually covers topics related to Reconstruction including:
Describe the social, economic, and political changes to Tennessee in the post-Reconstruction era, and identify the laws put in place to exclude Black lawmakers by 1890.
Analyze the effect of Jim Crow laws on Tennessee, and identify the efforts of advocates for African Americans, including the significance of W. E. B. Du Bois, James Napier, and Mary Church Terrell.
Educator Experiences
Tennessee educators who responded to our survey expressed concern with a lack of time to effectively teach Reconstruction and a lack of previous knowledge about the topic among their students, rendering the limited time they had to teach the topic even more serious. One middle school teacher wrote in response to our survey that “Reconstruction comes last in TN’s 8th grade social studies content. This usually lines up with our testing time or falls after the testing window. Due to its location, schools don’t get to teach this unit with the same focus and time that other units get.” Other respondents echoed concerns about how pacing issues impact the quality of instruction on Reconstruction. Another middle school teacher said “our pacing guides devote little time to [the Reconstruction] unit, and spend WAY too much time on the earlier units involving Colonial America.”
Some Tennessee teachers are making a concerted effort to teach Reconstruction. High school social studies teacher Mark McDonald noted that “because I teach in Memphis, I also encounter many students who have never really studied this period of history and among many of their families, the ‘Lost Cause’ myth of the Confederacy is alive and well. This becomes very clear when we’ve held discussions about the role of Confederate statues, how we memorialize certain periods in our history, and how we look at and come to terms with the history of our city and region.” McDonald noted that to teach Reconstruction he drew on resources from the Zinn Education Project, the Equal Justice Initiative, Facing History, and the documentary 13th on Netflix.
Assessment
The Tennessee standards on Reconstruction are better than most states’. The African American history course covers Reconstruction effectively, but the course is an elective so not all students are required to take the course. In many of the core courses, like the grade 8 course on U.S. history, the standards focus on a traditional narrative of Reconstruction that places disproportionate emphasis on the experiences of white people. No doubt, because he is from Tennessee, there is quite a bit of focus on the politics around the impeachment of Andrew Johnson.
For middle school teachers who would like to extend their discussions of Reconstruction beyond the state standards, the placement of the unit at the very end of the grade 8 course as standardized testing begins and the year begins to wind down is particularly disruptive.
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. Bill Lee signed HB0580, a law that restricts teaching about systemic racism and sexism. 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.
moments in Reconstruction history
This short list of events in Tennessee’s Reconstruction history is from the Zinn Education Project This Day in History collection. We welcome your suggestions for more.
April 1864 Union Soldiers Massacred at Fort Pillow
A Black militia was accused of blocking a road and punished with the Hamburg Massacre. This was Reconstruction era voter suppression.
Dec. 1865 Ku Klux Klan Founded
The Ku Klux Klan was founded in Pulaski, Tennessee.
April 1866 Couple Receives Freedmen’s Bureau Marriage Certificate
Benjamin Berry Manson and Sarah Ann Benton White, formerly enslaved in Tennessee, receive an official marriage certificate from the Freedmen’s Bureau.
White civilians and police killed 46 African-Americans and injured many more while burning houses, schools, and churches in Memphis, Tennessee.
Aug. 1869 First “Redeemer” Government Established in Tennessee
The first “Redeemer” government is established in Tennessee after conservatives gain control of the state’s General Assembly, ushering in an era of Jim Crow segregation laws.
During the Coal Creek War, there was a labor uprising to protest convict leasing.
March 1892 The People’s Grocery Lynching
A white mob seized three African American business men in Memphis and lynched them without trial.
Nov. 1898 First National Convention of the Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty, and Pension Association
The Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty, and Pension Association was founded with a dual mission to organize mutual aid for its members and to pass federal pension legislation that would compensate every formerly enslaved person.