In the early years of Reconstruction, local African Americans, who already knew how to read and write, shared their knowledge with family, friends, and neighbors. In Sharpsburg, Maryland, for example, David B. Simons, a literate African American and Tolson Chapel trustee, likely taught some of the central city's children and adults. In the South, black and white women struggled to make sense of a world of death and change. In Reconstruction, prominent women's rights advocate Elizabeth Cady Stanton saw an unprecedented opportunity for disenfranchised groups. Women as well as black Americans, from the North and the South, could seize political rights. During Reconstruction, black Americans won elections to Southern state governments and even to the U.S. Congress. Their growing influence greatly dismayed many white southerners, who felt controlled. Black leaders during Reconstruction. America's Reconstruction era was a turbulent time, as the nation struggled to rebuild the South and transition millions of newly freed blacks. Reconstruction and African Americans. A union leader representing the Freedman Bureau stands between armed groups of Euro-Americans and African-Americans. With the ascension of Andrew Johnson to the White House, the fears of African Americans were realized when President Johnson appointed the Mississippi Supreme Court. Importantly, they echoed Jones's view that African Americans themselves were leading the cause of civil rights. In fighting for equal rights throughout the century following emancipation, black Americans developed a strategy of nonviolent resistance that was emulated by feminists, Native Americans, and other marginalized groups. Students must learn this. Black Americans and the vote. The fight for voting rights in the United States dates back to the founding of the nation. The original U.S. Constitution did not define citizens' right to vote, and only white men were allowed to vote. When Reconstruction collapsed with the withdrawal of federal troops from the country.