Answer the following short essay topics using brief examples from the relevant readings and lecture. Do not quote the readings in your responses and write the essays in your own words. Each short essay response should be approximately one-half page in length, typed and double spaced

1. Assess the role of former slaves in defining their freedom after slavery. Explain how African Americans achieved their goals and aspirations following emancipation. What constraints hindered their goals in Reconstruction?

1. Assess the factors that led to Jim Crow laws and the disfranchisement of African Americans in the South using arguments from the lecture and textbook. How did African Americans respond to Jim Crow and the violence which whites used to reinforce it?