Reconstruction in South Carolina saw both successes and failures in creating political, educational, and social opportunities for African Americans. Initially, African Americans gained the right to vote and hold office, with half the delegates to South Carolina's constitutional convention being newly freed slaves. However, the rise of violent groups like the Ku Klux Klan led to widespread intimidation and violence targeting African Americans and Republicans. As federal protection withdrew, discrimination increased, culminating in the 1876 Hamburg Massacre and voting irregularities that ended Republican rule in South Carolina.

1. SC Success & Failure of
Reconstruction
8.5-3—Summarize the successes and failures of
Reconstruction in South Carolina, including the creation of
political, educational, and social opportunities for African
Americans; the rise of discriminatory groups; and the
withdrawal of federal protection.

2. ~Brushing Up~
• Congressional Reconstruction:
– Why were some southern states forced to write new
state constitutions?
– What did the south’s refusal to ratify the 14-15
amendments mean socially?
– What happened when most whites boycotted the
convention to write the new constitution?
– *Slightly more than half of the delegates to the
convention were African American and half of those
were newly freed slaves
– Also newly immigrated northerners were elected as
delegates to the convention as well

3. African American Voters
• Under the constitution of
1868, African American men
were allowed to vote & hold
office (& did so in large
numbers)
• African Americans had greater
political power in SC, than they
did in any other southern state
• Held every office in the state
but Governor & were a
majority in the state legislature
throughout Reconstruction

4. Propaganda
• Often characterized
African-American
elected officials as
ignorant ex-slaves
• Jim Crow
• Most who did serve
were literate
members of the
middle class who
were free before the
Civil War

5. Republican Government
• Officials established social service
programs
– State funded institutions for the blind &
deaf
– Made public health care a concern of the
SC govnt
– Established public schools for both whites
& African Americans for the first time
• Whites claimed the higher taxes to pay for
these programs was bankrupting them
• Whites manipulated the northern press
with propaganda, blaming the rising tax
rate and corruption on new state services
• The north quickly grew tired of
Reconstruction & gave up hope of ever
changing southern attitudes & way of life

6. Freedmen Education
• Young & old flocked to learn to read & write
• Northern funded private schools & new
Freedmen’s Bureau public schools
• Religious & Northern funded Colleges: Claflin
college, Benedict College,
Allen University &
Avery University
• Northern Aid Society
Created the Penn School
in Beaufort, SC

7. White Backlash in SC
• African Americans outnumbered white
southerners in the legislature, leading to many
whites refusal to participate in the new state
government
• Southern whites carried on a campaign of
terror against African Americans and white
Republicans they saw as assisting them
• Federal troops & militias disbanded in 1868
• Ku Klux Klan, Riflemen, Red Shirts left free to
harass, intimidate, & murder

8. Getting to know the Klan…
• With passage of the Third Force Act, popularly known as the Ku Klux Act, Congress
authorizes President Ulysses S. Grant to declare martial law, impose heavy
penalties against terrorist organizations, and use military force to suppress the Ku
Klux Klan(KKK).
• Founded in 1865 by a group of Confederate veterans, the KKK rapidly grew from a
secret social fraternity to a paramilitary force bent on reversing the federal
government's progressive Reconstruction Era-activities in the South, especially
policies that elevated the rights of the local African-American population. The
name of the Ku Klux Klan was derived from the Greek word kyklos, meaning
"circle," and the Scottish-Gaelic word "clan," which was probably chosen for the
sake of alliteration. Under a platform of philosophized white racial superiority, the
group employed violence as a means of pushing back Reconstruction and its
enfranchisement of African-Americans. Former Confederate General Nathan
Bedford Forrest was the KKK's first grand wizard and in 1869 unsuccessfully tried
to disband it after he grew critical of the Klan's excessive violence.
• Most prominent in counties where the races were relatively balanced, the KKK
engaged in terrorist raids against African-Americans and white Republicans at
night, employing intimidation, destruction of property, assault, and murder to
achieve its aims and influence upcoming elections. In a few Southern
states, Republicans organized militia units to break up the Klan. In 1871, passage of
the Ku Klux Act led to nine South Carolina counties being placed under martial law
and thousands of arrests. In 1882, the U.S. Supreme Court declared the Ku Klux Act
unconstitutional, but by that time Reconstruction had ended, and the KKK had
faded away.

9. Hamburg Massacre 1876

10. Violence in SC-
Thanks Reconstruction!
• Left SC in a state of violence and controversy
• The Hamburg Massacre of 1876 (Aiken County)
• White Democratic “Red Shirts” coordinated a
campaign of intimidation and fraud in order to
win the election of 1876
• Resulted in voting irregularities for governor's
election
• Two rival governments were established-one
Republican and one white Democrat.
• Standoff between white taxpayers who refused
to support the Republican government

11. Election Irregularities Plague the Nation
• Electoral votes of 3 southern states (SC included) were
disputed
• Congress support to protect the freedmen waned as
southerners continued to resist and the corruption in the
Grant Administration
• Western expansion/ migration west
• Northern economic depression
• Democratic & Republican compromise: Acknowledge
Hayes as President/ removal for federal troops from the
south
• Wade Hampton was elected SC governor & freedmen
were left to fend for themselves in hostile environments