Which organization provided food, clothing, medical care, and education to freedmen and white refugees, and was notable for teaching about 200,000 freed people to read?

• A. Underground Railroad
• B. Black Codes
• C. Sharecropping
• D. Freedmen's Bureau (1865-1872)

Answer: (D)

During Reconstruction, a government agency was created to help newly freed people and white refugees in the South. The Freedmen's Bureau provided food, clothing, medical care, and education, and it was particularly known for building schools that taught about 200,000 freed people to read. It also aided with legal issues and helped negotiate labor contracts as the South transitioned from slavery to freedom. Although it faced political pushback and limited funding, its work established a lasting push for public education and social welfare during that era. The Underground Railroad was a prewar network that helped enslaved people escape to freedom; Black Codes were restrictive postwar laws, and sharecropping was a farming system, not a relief organization.