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How were african americans treated unfairly during and end of reconstruction
Political, economic, social effects of the reconstruction
What were the political, economic, and social impacts of Reconstruction
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Effects of the Reconstruction Period on African Americans The Reconstruction Era is seen as a period of time where the nation was uniting once again. Despite this viewpoint, this is not how everyone perceived this epoch as a great unification. Many African-Americans still dealt with oppression, despite promise of a better life when the Civil War finally ended. Granted, there were many advancements toward equal rights among black and white men and women, but many Southerners were not pleased with the fact that they lost a majority of their workers, which in turn resulted in unfair treatment to these newly “freed” slaves. The political effect that the Reconstruction era had on African-Americans was that they were now “able to vote”. They received …show more content…
There were some people who were determined to keep the things as close to the way they were as physically possible. The Black Codes were passed by Southern states in 1865 after the Civil War ended. The purpose of these laws was to restrict the new freedoms of African Americans and to try and necessitate them to work in a labor economy based on their low wages or heavy debt. This series of laws etiolated African Americans and tried to enforce segregation even more than it was already being done. Blacks had many restrictions placed upon them merely because of the color of their skin. If an African American was thought to be unemployed, he or she could have been hired out to a white citizen for the rest of the year. In response to these laws, the Jim Crow laws were passed. These laws came to pass after the fourteenth and the fifteenth amendment established that the Black Codes were considered unconstitutional. A group of Democrats, known as the Reformers, later took control of many political positions in the South and tried to end segregation between the two races. Despite the new “free” title, the land was not free to many of these people. Many slaves who were considered “free” were returned to the plantations that they worked on because many people did not accept the emancipation of the
Even when the Amendment abolished slavery in 1865, and the black people embraced education, built their own churches, reunited with their broken families and worked very hard in the sharecropping system, nothing was enough for the Reconstruction to succeed. Whites never gave total freedom to African Americans. Blacks were forced to endure curfews, passes, and living on rented land, which put them in a similar situation as slaves. In
were losing their rights, and were forced to do other work that was similar to slavery. African
After a war that claimed the lives of more men than that of all other wars combined, much of the country was left in ruins, literally and figuratively. Dozens of towns in the South had been burned to the ground. Meanwhile, the relations between the North and South had crumbled to pieces. Something needed to be done so that the country could once again be the United States of America, not the Divided States of America. The years from 1865 to 1877 were a time of rebuilding – the broken communities and the broken relations. This time period was known as Reconstruction. Reconstruction was a failure on the basis that the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments that were passed should have given protection and freedom to the African American people, instead, it actually hurt them because the laws were not enforced, and eventually lead to the organization of white supremacy terrorist groups.
After the Civil War, many of the ex-slaves moved away from their masters with their families in hopes of owning their own land, but very few found success. Many of the slaves found that they had a harder time being free than they did during slavery. The African-Americans now had to fend for themselves but most lacked the money, land, and jobs to do so. Some of the ex-slaves decided to stay and work for their masters for money, food, and shelter, but many were not fortunate enough to have that option. Many African-Americans died because they could not support themselves or their families on their own. The ex-slaveowners were also in a bad position at this point because they lack the manpower to manage their land. Henry William Ravenel, a former slaveowner, stated "Our Finances are in such a condition that universal discontent and real suffering exists (Firsthand 21)." ...
... and slavery left millions of newly freed African Americans in the South without an education, a home, or a job. Before reconstruction was put in place, African Americans in the South were left roaming helplessly and hopelessly. During the reconstruction period, the African Americans’ situation did not get much better. Although helped by the government, African Americans were faced with a new problem. African Americans in the South were now being terrorized and violently discriminated by nativist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. Such groups formed in backlash to Reconstruction and canceled out all the positive factors of Reconstruction. At last, after the Compromise of 1877, the military was taken out of the South and all of the Reconstruction’s efforts were basically for nothing. African Americans in the South were back to the conditions they started with.
Imagine yourself wrongly convicted of a crime. You spent years in jail awaiting your release date. It finally comes, and when they let you out, they slap handcuffs around your wrists and tell you every single action you do. In a nutshell, that’s how the Black Codes worked. The southerners wanted control over the blacks after the Civil War, and states created their own Black Codes.
After the 13th amendment was passed, there was a severe shortage of workers on plantations and they needed help. The black codes were partially created because of economic worries of not having labor in the south. They helped reconstruction because it ensured that wealthy southern landowners would have a cheap and steady workforce they needed, because some of the codes forced African Americans to sign contracts that required them to work for meager wages. The government was also scared that the freed slaves would try to get revenge on their owners. The black codes helped regain control and inhibit the freedoms over the freed slaves, prevent black uprisings, ensure the continued and steady supply of cheap labor, and maintain segregation and white supremacy. Also, without the black codes, many amendments granting African Americans equal rights wouldn’t have been passed. The black codes forced congress to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the 14th amendment. The northerners reaction to black codes helped produce radical reconstruction and the 14th and 15th
William Mason Grosvenor believes that Reconstruction should be harsh. Grosvenor has two main arguments to support this belief, manifest destiny and the potential for the reoccurrence of a similar event to the war if Reconstruction was carried out in a lenient manner. Grosvenor argues that the country, pre-Civil War, was never truly a single unified country, but rather a group of peoples with vastly different values held together by a constitution which they had outgrown, saying, “[n]o chemical union had ever taken place; for that the white-hot crucible of civil war was found necessary.” Furthermore, Grosvenor believes that the succession of the South demonstrated this divide while simultaneously violating the doctrine of manifest destiny through
The Americans of African and European Ancestry did not have a very good relationship during the Civil war. They were a major cause of the Civil War. But, did they fix or rebuild that relationship after the war from the years 1865 to 1900? My opinion would be no. I do not believe that the Americans of African and European ancestry successfully rebuilt their relationship right after the Civil war. Even though slavery was finally slowly getting abolished, there was still much discrimination against the African Americans. The Jim Crow laws and the black codes discriminated against black people. The Ku Klux Klan in particular discriminated against black people. Even though the United States government tried to put laws into the Constitution to protect black people, the African Americans were discriminated in every aspect of life from housing, working, educating, and even going to public restrooms!
Although there were a lot of good outcomes that made the nation what we are, there were also bad ones. Following the Civil War and the slaves being freed, African Americans struggled immensely in order to get rights and not to get discriminated.
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.
Prior to the Civil War, African Americans were treated as second class individuals. They lacked the freedom and equality they sought for. To the African Americans, the Civil War was a war of liberation. Contrary to what African Americans perceived, Southerners viewed the war as an episode of their journey to salvation. Southern lands may have been destroyed and depleted, but the South was persistent that their racial order would not be disrupted. To most, the goals of the Reconstruction era were to fully restore the Union, and to some, grant emancipation and liberty to former slaves. Although the newly freedmen gained various rights and liberties, their naïve dreams of complete equality and liberation collapsed due to the immense resistance of the South.
On one hand the slaves were free, and on the other hand they were not given equal rights, and they were discriminated for the color of their skin tone. In other words, Reconstruction was a mixed success, which combined both positive and negative impacts. By the end of the era, the North and South were once again reunited, and all southern state legislatures had abolished slavery in their constitutions. However, it some sense, Reconstruction was a failure because blacks were not provided equal rights and opportunities. Racism and segregation did not end at all. On the other hand, there was a huge change to the country as the US was completely in a chaos stage during the civil war. Despite some obstructions, it can be concluded that the Reconstruction was somewhat beneficial for African American. As time passes, many schools and colleges were founded for blacks, and many other doors were opened to uplift their life. Overall, all these outcomes can be considered as a huge
After the end of the civil war African Americans had more opportunity and freedom since the men were soldiers of the civil war. Most African Americans had the plan to leave the south and move to up north because of the racism still lingering in the south, for example the Plessy vs. Ferguson Supreme Court case. This case was about a light-skin colored man sitting in the “white” car of a train. Although he was light-skin he was still considered black and got arrested for sitting in that section of the train. This was an opportunity to express racial equality, but the end result was devastating. The Supreme Court declared that segregation of race was to be still constitutionally acceptable. Also economic status in the south was getting lower and there was not as much labor due to destroyed crops.
Reconstruction had drastically varying levels of effects on ex-confederates and freedmen. After the civil war ended the United States had to reintegrate both a formerly slave population and a formerly rebellious population back into the country. Under Andrew Johnson, the guiding reconstruction principle was that the South never had a right to secede in the first place. Under such a mentality, as long as ex-confederates peacefully joined the union, there was little or no punishment for their transgressions. Between 1865 and 1867 Johnson appointed provisional governors and ordered them to call state conventions to establish new all-white governments "To represent them, they chose former Confederates" (Roark, 428).