In the 1800’s slavery was a huge problem in our country. Especially in the south. White citizens in the south would own lots of plantations were African Americans would be forced to work. After the South was defeated in the civil war, the reconstruction process would begin. Reconstruction is when people try to fix the conflicts that were destroying the country. After trying to make new laws in the reconstruction process, reconstruction ended up being a failure. Reconstruction was a failure due to the new laws created by the influence of the South. Even though African Americans were claimed to be free they were still segregated. For example in the text Plessy v. Ferguson Judgement (1896) it states,“Supreme Court accepted the proposition that …show more content…
these people could maintain their full equality even while being racially separated...these rulings continued to tear apart black and white communities within the South, eating away at any hopes of equality and peacefulness between them” (Plessy v Ferguson: Separate isn’t Equal”, n.d.). This allows the audience to realize that people were segregated. This was causing a bigger conflict because people were forced to be segregated based off of the color of their skin. African Americans were not equal to the white men because white man were still placed on a pedestals because the Supreme Courts took their ideas and ran with it not even considering the black man’s dreams and desires. this caused reconstruction to fail because if the Supreme Courts only listened to one side of the story they force the other opinions and ideas to become obsolete creating tension between the two races. Reconstruction was to such a hassle for people to accept. After the civil war African Americans were told they were equal to only find out they were not. For instance, “Social tensions were high during Reconstruction. In 1868, a white mob rioted and killed 25-50 freedmen in Opelousas. Some reports put the number killed even higher, ranging from 200-300, and it was one of the single worst instances of Reconstruction violence in south Louisiana. Opelousas enacted ordinances following the abolition of slavery that served to greatly restrict the freedoms of black Americans” (Opelousas Black Codes, n.d.). this evidence suggests that African Americans had to fear for their lives all the time because they never knew when they will be attacked, or killed. African Americans had limit access to places and were not allowed to go some in some areas if they attended on survival. The war was suppose to create to new opportunities for Black Americans but instead it continued to make African Americans to feel less like Americans. Reconstruction was dangerous for African Americans because their lives were constantly being threatened, by whites who were closed minded to the fact of change causing the reconstruction process to fail miserably. Some people believe that Reconstruction was a success because African Americans were given the right to become free.
African Americans were longer to be held in captivity. The African American Records suggest “ The war had liberated nearly four million slaves and destroyed the region's cities, towns, and plantation-based economy...social reconstruction that would bring freed people to full citizenship” (African American Records: Freedmen’s Bureau, n.d.). This informs the audience that African Americans were free and now allowed them to gain full citizenship. Black Americans would finally gain their citizenship and start their new lives as a free man with equal rights as a white man. Although African Americans were freed, reconstruction still managed to fail. African Americans still had to live in fear because they were still unequal. In the Harper’s weekly cartoon, there’s a picture White Resistance to Reconstruction, and it shows African Americans looking down at a child as they sit there afraid because to the left of them you have a man representing the white league and to the right of them a KKK member who’s holding hands with the white league man and they have a skull in their hands as they hold it over the African Americans families head. If you look where the African Americans are you can see a school book, and in the background their school house is burning down and a man being lynched. The words is the picture say “ The union it was this is a white man’s covenant the lost cause worse than
slavery” (White Resistance to Reconstruction, 1874). This lets the audience know that segregation was worse than slavery showing that reconstruction failed. Free African Americans had the right to receive an education but white men did not agree with this and wanted Blacks to not gain an education so they would burn down schools and kill the people at the schools. Reconstruction was suppose to help African American citizens, have the same opportunities as the Whites , not create more differences amongst the two races. The audience gains an understanding on how the past was between the two races, it also gives insight that if a new law is made regarding equality, or anything at that; than the Supreme court and citizens have to back it up. We have to provide physical and emotional support to make a change occur. The audience also learns to not give up, and if they want to see a change then they have to holdfast and endure the challenges, to see the change they desire. This is relevant in both the past and the present. For the past Americans learn to endure in order for their to be a change. For the present it teaches Americans how to accomplish that change.
Reconstruction was a nasty period in History. Reconstruction took place after the civil war. In the civil war there was lots of devastation. Buildings and houses were being destroyed so people needed something called Reconstruction. Reconstruction was something people really needed after the civil war because they needed to rebuild a community. Some people didn't want reconstruction because they liked destruction. Then also after the civil war slavery was abolished, as well some people don't like that either. South killed Reconstruction because South resistance had KKK, and South was murdering people.
The North’s neglect and greediness caused the reconstruction to be a failure.The corrupt government, terrorist organizations, unfocused president, and ignorance were also part of the ending of the reconstruction. President Lincoln didn’t want the civil war he wanted to keep the nation together. When Lincoln went into office he wasn't planning on getting rid of slavery nor starting a civil war. Before the reconstruction era was the civil war. Many good things and bad things came from the civil war. The civil war was a war between the North and the South. The war for the north was to end slavery, but for the south it was about rights and liberty. It wasn’t until afterwards that Americans started to notice the good and the bad. Not as many people
“The best way to predict your future is to create it” (Lincoln). President states the principal of Reconstruction, where to unite the United States, there must be an authoritative action to carry it out. The Reconstruction Era (1863-1877) is a period where Lincoln sought to restore the divided nation by uniting the confederates and the union and to involve the freedmen into the American society. The main objectives were to initially restore the union, to rebuild the South and to enact progressive legislation for the rights of the freed slaves. Thus, the executive and legislature branches had enacted a series of polices to “create the future” for the United States. Although the policies tied down to the Reconstructive motive, there was controversy
In conclusion, Reconstruction failed for the freedmen for a variety of reasons. I believe the main reason for this failure was the inability for the two political parties to agree on what they wanted to achieve. Did they want total freedom for the freed slaves, only partial freedom, or just the rebuilding that issue coupled with unpopularity, the freedman’s culture being rooted in the south, and the freed slaves’ inability to find work outside of the south resulted in a process that took over a century to work successfully. I feel that it is very unfortunate that President Lincoln was killed so shortly after the end of the Civil War. I believe that since Reconstruction was Lincoln’s idea he would have carried it out more successfully than his successors did.
The United States had a presidential and congressional reconstruction. Reconstruction was a failure, a great attempt to unify the nation. It was a failure due to the events that took place during this period. It was 1865, black men were tasting freedom, the confederation was defeated, the south was defeated, but the unchained blacks had no real freedom. " A man maybe free and yet not independent," Mississippi planter Samuel Agnew observed in his diary (Foner 481).
Reconstruction was the time period following the Civil War, which lasted from 1865 to 1877, in which the United States began to rebuild. The term can also refer to the process the federal government used to readmit the defeated Confederate states to the Union. While all aspects of Reconstruction were not successful, the main goal of the time period was carried out, making Reconstruction over all successful. During this time, the Confederate states were readmitted to the Union, the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments were ratified, and African Americans were freed from slavery and able to start new lives.
During the time of reconstruction, the 13th amendment abolished slavery. As the Nation was attempting to pick up their broken pieces and mend the brokenness of the states, former slaves were getting the opportunity to start their new, free lives. This however, created tension between the Northerners and the Southerners once again. The Southerners hated the fact that their slaves were being freed and did not belong to them anymore. The plantations were suffering without the slaves laboring and the owners were running out of solutions. This created tension between the Southern planation owners and the now freed African Americans. There were many laws throughout the North and the South that were made purposely to discriminate the African Americans.
The Reconstruction period in the United States was from 1865-1877. Unfortunately, Abraham Lincoln passed away and so the vice president took over. This was unfortunate because he was a southerner which means he was pro slavery. Because of this, Johnson vetoed a bill, Freedmen’s Bureau and Civil Rights Bills, that caused a permanents disagreements with Congress that lead to his impeachment in 1868. The Reconstruction was going great, but as soon as the soldiers were taken out from the South everything went back to the South’s old ways. White Supremacy became very present in the South. This means that people believe white people are better than black people. One of the main organized groups that were white supremacists was the Ku Klux Klan.
After the emancipation of slaves in 1862, the status of African-Americans in post civil war America up until the beginning of the twentieth century did not go through a great deal of change. Much legislation was passed to help blacks in this period. The Civil Rights act of 1875 prohibited segregation in public facilities and various government amendments gave African-Americans even more guaranteed rights. Even with this government legislation, the newly dubbed 'freedmen' were still discriminated against by most people and, ironically, they were soon to be restricted and segregated once again under government rulings in important court cases of the era.
April 1865 saw the end of the Civil War, and with it came the need for some sort of policy to reunify, restore or “reconstruct” the political, economic, and social relationship of the southern states with the rest of the Union. The period of this process of bringing the states of the Confederacy back into the Union is called Reconstruction.
...h past prejudices and previous beliefs elongated the process of desegregation, African Americans were still successful and were able to be free.
History has a way of repeating itself. We are part of a world where equal rights are still being debated today. During the Reconstruction era from 1865-1877, there were many attempts made to rebuild and restore the remnants left by the Civil War. At the forefront of Reconstruction was the main priority of eradicating slavery. This was accomplished initially by the 13th Amendment, with the 14th Amendment naturalizing all citizens, regardless of race and the 15th Amendment extending the right to vote to all African Americans. This amendment gave all African Americans a political platform and allowed them the ability to vote for fellow African Americans into political office. They also had some amount of social services that were provided by the
After the Civil War the Reconstruction Era occurred in the southern United States. The Reconstruction Era deeply impacted the south in a negative way for minority. African American were unjustly treated by the white Americans, their rights were limited and or taken away. As a result, they fought hard to obtain equal treatment as citizens. Blacks tried to fight segregation in many ways like at the ballot boxes, in the courtrooms, and through organizations like the National Association of the Advancement of Colored People. Beginning in 1873, a series of Supreme Court decisions limited the scope of Reconstruction-era laws and federal support for the Reconstruction Amendments, particularly the 14th and 15th, which gave African Americans the status
The Reconstruction of the South wasn’t completed due to corruption in the North, and because of the Panic of 1873. These two events change how the South could have been and made it to what it was. The corruption of Grant swung in favor of the Klan and hurt the black people, also with the economic depression it shifted the attention of the North and making them take care of their own needs instead of their wrongfully treated
Washington believes that reconstruction is doomed for failure since the beginning of the period because the people looked to the government on how to act, people being not educated so they wouldn’t be ready for the duties of citizen ship, and the ignorance of the African Americans and their dependence on the government for everything. It was also because of how early it was after the age of slavery but Washington still attempted many different ways to help promote the reconstruction in hopes that one day that African Americans would be considered equals and not just the lower tier of the spectrum. There were too many factors that would hinder the reconstruction as a whole so that it would never be successful.