A. Reconstruction

The image of Reconstruction as a South struggling under "Negro rule" has long since been eradicated. Only in South Carolina did Blacks comprise a majority of a constitutional convention or even one house of the state legislature. And no Black was elected as governor of a southern state during the Reconstruction. However, the achievements of the Reconstruction far outweighed its failures. Democracy had (supposedly) come to the South, and all citizens were assured equality, both legally and politically. Activists such as Booker T. Washington and James Weldon Watson fought hard for the rights of their people. Violence, particularly of the Ku Klux Klan, flared up against Blacks who were treading lightly on their new path to freedom. However, several states even passed (and enforced) legislation against racial discrimination in public places. And for the first time, a public education system was established.

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