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After the Civil War
(1865-1870)

Freedmen's Bureau

Freedmen's Bureau
Reading Level
     edHelper's suggested reading level:   high interest, readability grades 3 to 5
     Flesch-Kincaid grade level:   4.21

Vocabulary
     challenging words:    agency, slavery, official, federal, original, education, illegal, impressed, schools, medical, beginning, against, court, history, often, former
     content words:    Abraham Lincoln, Civil War, United States, President Johnson

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Freedmen's Bureau
By Cathy Pearl 		  
1     Abraham Lincoln was killed before the official end of the Civil War. He had a plan to rebuild the South. Congress was against the president because they thought his plan was too easy on the South. One of the last things they agreed on was to start a relief agency. This agency was known as the Freedmen's Bureau.
 
2     The bureau was started to help blacks and poor whites. It was the first federal relief agency in United States history. It did not have strong support in Congress. By 1869, the agency was largely taken apart. It did what it could in the short time it was in action. One of its main impacts was in the area of education.
 
3     More than four thousand grade schools for blacks were built with the help of this agency. Both young and old were ready for the chance to go to school. Grandparents would sit next to their children and grandchildren. Everyone wanted the chance to learn to read and write.
 
4     Most of the teachers in the schools were volunteers. Most of them came from the North. They were impressed at how badly their students wanted to learn.
 
5     The bureau also helped to start colleges. Many of the graduates of these schools would go on to become teachers. As blacks graduated from college, they became teachers. There were black teachers in many grade schools in the South by the 1870s.

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