| Preface to the 1995 Edition | |
| Acknowledgments | |
| Abbreviations | |
| Introduction | 3 |
| Ch. 1 | Unfinished Task: The Civil Rights Act of 1875 | 13 |
| Ch. 2 | Reconstruction Reconfirmed? The Election of 1872 | 24 |
| Ch. 3 | Reconstruction Unravels, 1873-1876 | 35 |
| Ch. 4 | Time, Education, and Bootstraps | 53 |
| Ch. 5 | The Compromise of 1877 | 81 |
| Ch. 6 | Crosscurrents and Confusion, 1877-1880 | 95 |
| Ch. 7 | The New South | 107 |
| Ch. 8 | Good-bye to the Bloody Shirt | 121 |
| Ch. 9 | The Roots of Freedmen's Education | 143 |
| Ch. 10 | Between Black and White: Puritans in Babylon | 161 |
| Ch. 11 | Paternalism and Piety | 184 |
| Ch. 12 | Detour or Mainstream? The Curriculum of Missionary Schools | 203 |
| Ch. 13 | The Segregation Issue | 224 |
| Ch. 14 | Berea College | 244 |
| Ch. 15 | The Struggle for Black Control | 262 |
| Ch. 16 | The Shattering of Hope | 299 |
| Ch. 17 | Women's Rights and Anti-Imperialism | 318 |
| Ch. 18 | History and Biology | 333 |
| Ch. 19 | Booker T. Washington and the Reaffirmation of Gradualism | 354 |
| Ch. 20 | The Rejection of Gradualism and the Founding of the NAACP | 368 |
| Appendix A: Abolitionists on Whom This Book is Based | 395 |
| Appendix B: Southern Negro Colleges and Secondary Schools
Established by Northern Mission Societies | 409 |
| A Note on Sources | 417 |
| Index | 423 |
