Failure Of Reconstruction Essay

After the Civil War, four million slave were brought from captivity to freedom, but the Reconstruction period introduced a new set of significant challenges. Reconstruction focused on rebuilding the Southern states and properly integrating and protecting recently freed slaves at they began to enter American society. This time period was meant to bridge the gap between the Northern and Southern states; however, there were still many disputes. The Reconstruction failed economically and socially because of poverty in the Southern states, sharecropping, the black codes, and the Klu Klux Klan.
The Southern states had been economically built around the production of cash crops and slave labor. After the war, the South was essentially left in ruins.

Farmers had lost their land and their slaves which meant they had no crops to sell. This resulted in lack of money and food for farmers and other southerners. This threw most people in the South into a poverty cycle.
After slavery was abolished, a new system called sharecropping rose to the surface. This was a system in which African-Americans would lease land from a landowner in exchange for a percentage of their crop. The landowner would then deduct expenses like housing, food, and farming supplies from the African-Americans’ profit. Oftentimes the landowner that the African-Americans worked under was their former master so it was essentially another form of slavery. This system caused former slaves to have immense amounts of debt as a result of landowners taking more in expenses than the tenants would earn from the sale of their crop. This left the newly freed slaves in a massive poverty cycle that lasted for generations.
Black codes were a series of laws that were put into place in order to limit the freedoms that blacks had.

They required blacks to obtain passes for traveling, forbid them from owning or even renting land, and forbid them to vote or serve on juries. This often forced many blacks to work on their old plantations which basically placed them back into slavery. Life for African-Americans was almost the exact same as it was when they were in captivity. Black codes were essentially the predecessor to the Jim Crow laws, which were laws that enforced racial segregation in the Southern states. These laws required the separation of white people and African-Americans in public transportation and in schools. Although “the U.S. Supreme Court considered it to be “separated but equal”” (Urofsky), it still put African-Americans in a position to feel less

than.
The Klu Klux Klan was founded in 1866 by a group of Confederate veterans in Pulaski, Tennessee.

The group spread throughout almost every southern state by 1870. It became a way for white southerners to resist the Reconstruction policies that came forward attempting to create social and economic equality for the newly freed slaves. Members of the KKK used violence and intimidation as tactics against white and black republican leaders. They wanted white supremacy to be restored in the United States. Therefore, they terrorized any African-American that attempted to be a part of the government. It is estimated that “at least 10% of the Black legislators elected during the 1867-1868 constitutional convention became victims of violence during Reconstruction, including seven who were killed”(History). The KKK wasn’t alone in these efforts; they were joined by groups such as the Knights of White Camelia and the White Brotherhood. Wearing masks and the signature white robes and hoods, the group usually performed their attacks at night. Although Reconstruction was meant the bring equality to African-Americans, they were pushed into silence through violence and intimidation. The biggest issue with the Klan was the fact that “local law enforcement officials either belonged to the class or declined to take action against it, and even those who arrested accused Klansmen found it difficult to find witnesses to testify against them”

(History).
Although the Reconstruction period was centered around bringing America together again, it caused a lot of problems. African-Americans were supposed to be integrated into society, yet they were segregated and victims of violence. Southern States were supposed to be rebuilt, yet they were left in ruins. Overall, the Reconstruction socially and economically failed at bringing society together again.