Reconstruction Pros And Cons

1. A Broken Beginning

In the wake of the Civil War, the nation wrestled with the purpose and implementation of Reconstruction. A Virginia freedman, recalling generations of slavery and more recent sacrifices of service in the Union army, declared the United States “now our country ‒ made emphatically so by the blood of our brethren.” In this spirit, Radical Republicans sought to create a new multiracial democracy based on the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments. In contrast, southern conservatives worked to limit the effects of Union victory while restoring, or “redeeming,” the South, specifically its economy and social hierarchy, to their standings before the outbreak of civil conflict.

Informal restrictions on the freedoms of African Americans, known as Black Codes, were passed and implemented in order to weaken the social transformations of Reconstruction and its amendments to the United States Constitution. These laws, along with measures to restrict ballot access, spread state by state throughout the South, accompanied by intimidation and violence aimed at the associated minority groups. Court cases like Plessy

v. Ferguson validated legislation promoting segregation and, together with frequent lynchings, disenfranchisement, and intimidation, moved the South towards a racially separated Jim Crow society.

Atlanta Race Riots

In the heat of the 1906 gubernatorial election, tensions in Atlanta began to boil over. The rising prominence of African Americans in the city, both in terms of their success in the business community and their influence as newly registered voters, had become a central issue during the Democratic primary. Newspapers inflamed the situation by headlining alleged atrocities committed by black men on white women, calling for Ku Klux Klan gatherings, and promoting talk of local lynchings. As a result, thousands of white men and boys gathered in mobs downtown on September 22, 1906. They attacked streetcars and black-owned businesses, smashed windows, and beat owners to death. Hearing reports of heavily armed groups of African Americans, police raided Brownsville, arresting 250 men. For several days, the city was overcome with rioting, and the state militia was ultimately called out to regain order. In the end, accounts maintained that more than 25 blacks were killed and three whites died.

2. Educational Equality

In 1865, schools built by the Freedmen’s Bureau to promote literacy and the education of free blacks during Reconstruction, opened to extreme overcrowding and a constant struggle for support. Throughout the century following the Civil War, African Americans continued to inhabit a world of challenges in pursuit of formal education. Faced with insufficient funds and educational materials, scant access to public buildings, and a society wary of educating former slaves, “black communities ... dug deep into their own resources to build and maintain schools that met their needs and reflected their values.”

This make-shift system was thrown into further upheaval in 1954 after the decision of Brown v.

Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. The Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the “segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law.... We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” The following year, the Court issued its guidance for southern states to integrate their public schools “with all deliberate speed,” and governors across the South responded with a call for “massive resistance.” and updated their state flags with Confederate symbols, while the federal government intervened to force

integration.

3. Taking A Stand

“Massive resistance” to integration continued across the South in the wake of the Brown v. Board decision. In 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama, public bus. The resulting Montgomery Bus Boycott drew support from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), galvanizing protest against segregation and propelling Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to national prominence.

By 1960, a series of court cases had declared that racial segregation on interstate buses was a violation of the Constitution. To bring attention to the Deep South’s disregard for judicial rulings and to test the compliance of southern states, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) organized racially integrated Freedom Rides throughout the South. Met with intimidation and violence, buses and riders were attacked by rioters but eventually succeeded in bringing down whites-only signs across the region.

4. Marching Forward

Dedicated to advancing racial equality through nonviolence, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a tireless advocate for social change. Dr. King’s tremendous presence, embodied in his faith, passion, and oratory, brought him to the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement. He co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and helped organize the Montgomery Bus Boycott. King led the Birmingham Campaign to desegregate the city as well as the protest marches from Selma to Montgomery and helped organize the March on Washington, where his leadership became a focal point of civil rights. Instrumental in maintaining pressure on state governments until the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts were signed, he won a Nobel Peace Prize for his tireless efforts. His thirteen years of leadership stood as a testament, challenging the notion of equality under the law and securing liberty and justice for all.

5. Changing Tides

Although not the featured speaker at the 1963 March on Washington, when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. took to the podium at the Lincoln Memorial, his speech toward the end of the event was nothing less than historic. He later recalled, “as television beamed the image of this extraordinary gathering across the border oceans, everyone who believed in man’s capacity to better himself had a moment of inspiration and confidence in the future of the human race.” The resulting Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965, initiated by the Kennedy administration and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, were the farthest reaching acts of civil rights legislation since the end of the Civil War 100 years earlier.

6. Georgia’s Resistance

Like the rest of the states in the Deep South, Georgia participated in a campaign of “massive resistance” to school integration as ruled by the Brown v. Board Supreme Court decision. Adopting a combative approach to the emerging Civil Rights Movement, Georgia’s General Assembly approved a new state flag in 1956, two-thirds of which boasted a Confederate emblem. Georgians were split on the issue.

A Committee on Schools, headed by John Sibley, was also commissioned in 1960 to hold hearings and prepare recommendations for state policy. The committee’s report was simple: discourage massive resistance, and give local districts the jurisdiction to implement the ruling according to their own timetables. Public schools and universities across Georgia slowly began to integrate by 1961, and the collapse of segregation was eventually brought about by the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964. However, resistance lingered in representatives like Lester Maddox, the former Atlanta restaurant owner turned politician who ran on a platform of ardent segregation and won the governorship of Georgia in 1966. His successor, Jimmy Carter, was a staunch opponent of segregation and made great strides to erase its vestiges from the state government.

7. Pressing On

Although Atlanta saw its own robust demonstrations and protests around the issue of racial equality, it was spared the violence experienced by other large southern cities and experienced a smoother transition through desegregation under the leadership of Ivan Allen Jr. Continuing Allen’s work, Maynard Jackson, the first African-American mayor of Atlanta, ensured that the minority business community became a new focus of Atlanta’s government. Together with Representative Andrew Young, the first elected African-American congressman from Georgia since Reconstruction and mayor of Atlanta after Jackson, Georgia moved towards overcoming its conflictive past and implementing its future vision for a more integrated society. As the fight for civil rights in the African-American community played out on the national stage, other groups became inspired and began to advocate for freedoms afforded to them by the Constitution. The city of Atlanta, the state of Georgia, and the United States as a whole continue to make great strides in improving civil rights for all people.