Here is a brief overview of the time period in United States history dealing with the post Civil War of the 1800s. “In December of 1865, [eight months after the end of the Civil War,] the Thirteenth Amendment  was added to the Constitution. It abolished slavery in the United States.” (10) The former slaves were now free, but without jobs, land, or a place to live, life was not any better than it had been. “In 1865 African Americans were allowed to apply for land in the South. Most of the land had been abandoned or taken during the war.(14)…  But by the middle of 1866, half of this land had been returned to its original white owners. “(15) The Freedmen’s Bureau sought to help fight jobs, build schools and churches, and settle disputes between freed slaves and white landowners. Laws known as Black Codes began to appear which restricted what African Americans were allowed to do in the South, in favor of segregation. President “Johnson’s approach of letting the South  control how African Americans were treated was not working.” (23) The Ku Klux Klan burnt houses, schools, churches, and African Americans. “The Ku Klux Klan killed 20,000 men, women, and children between 1868 and 1871.” (24) The United States Congress stepped in with the Civil Rights Act of 1866,  the Reconstruction Act of 1867, the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, and the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870. Each one of these helped, but not by as much as they were intended to do. Southern whites used violence and intimidation over African Americans. African Americans were able to go to school, but their other rights were very controlled.

Spread throughout this book there are 6 side bars dealing with such topics as ‘Frederick Douglass’ and the ‘Challenges of Voting’.

Between chapters there are opportunities for further reflection and research.

The text is written in simple sentences which get the point across. The illustrations are historical reproductions from the era.

The book ends with a two-page outline recapping the book’s content, two-page “Stop and Think” section, a glossary, an index, and two web sites.