Reconstruction era removed civilian governments in the South, and placed the former Confederacy under the rule of the U.S. Army. The army conducted new elections in which the freed slaves could vote, while whites who had held leading positions under the Confederacy were temporarily denied the vote and were not permitted to run for office. In ten states, coalitions of freedmen, recent black and white arrivals from the North (carpetbaggers), and white Southerners who supported Reconstruction (scalawags) cooperated to form Republican biracial state governments. They introduced various reconstruction programs including: funding public schools, establishing charitable institutions, raising taxes, and funding public improvements
History of the Poles in the United States Detroit, Michigan who lived in a home where her Irish-American mother would sometimes call her Polish-American father a "dumb Polack." Polish Americans were ashamed of their identities, and thousands changed their names to fit into American society. The American media spread an image of the Polish male as a "jock", typically large, strong, and tough athletically, but lacking in intelligence. Thomas Tarapacki theorized that the prominence and high visibility of Polish Americans in sports during the postwar era contributed to the Polish jokes of the 1960s and 70s. Although Poles were succeeding in all types of sports, including tennis and