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Reconstruction era after the civil war
Reconstruction era after the civil war
Reconstruction era after the civil war
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The Reconstruction tried to help restore and unify the United States. The South had drafted new constitutions, they also acknowledged the Thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth Amendments. That action showed that the south was loyal to the US government. Even with that small progress there continued to be much tension between whites and blacks during the 1870s. Freed people of the south were resented by whites for wanting an education and for wanting a better life for themselves, this period of time was very hard and trying for African Americans. This was a volatile time in America’s history. Sharecropping was widely used in the south as some sort of benefit to black men. Sharecropping is where owner of the land split the profit from the land …show more content…
In 1877, President Rutherford Hayes disengaged troops from the South and slave owners took back their power. With new control these southern white politicians passed the Black Codes. These codes/laws were written to oversee the behavior of African Americans after the Civil War, model after the slave codes that were enforced before the Civil War. These codes are just a different kind of slavery. Black people of that era had to watch everything they did. They couldn’t do just anything and what is really sad they still had to serve white people in one way or another. This still was no way to live. White men could serve as police until police could get to the scene. White people still had control over black people. This codes were very extreme too. Only a black man that was in the army would be allowed to carry a firearm but they could not preach. These codes where emplaced out of the white man’s ignorance and fear. Even with the Fourteenth Amendment, escaping state governments from treating citizens otherwise. In 1892, Plessy v. Ferguson, while riding a train passenger Homer Plessy sat in the “whites only” car and declined to sit in the Jim Crow car. The decision was for Ferguson
Though the issue of slavery was solved, racism continues and Southerners that stayed after the war passed Black Codes which subverted the ideas of freedom including the actions of state legislatures (Hakim 19). Black Codes were a set of laws that discriminated blacks and limited their freedom (Jordan 388). Such restrictions included: “No negro shall be permitted to rent or keep a house within said parish...No public meetings or congregations of negroes shall be allowed within said parish after sunset…” (Louisiana Black Codes 1865). A solution to this was the 14th Amendment. It meant now all people born in America were citizens and it “Prohibited states from revoking one’s life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” This meant all states had to...
Although many laws were passed that recognized African Americans as equals, the liberties they had been promised were not being upheld. Hoffman, Blum, and Gjerde state that “Union League members in a North Carolina county, upon learning of three or four black men who ‘didn’t mean to vote,’ threatened to ‘whip them’ and ‘made them go.’ In another country, ‘some few colored men who declined voting’ were, in the words of a white conservative, ‘bitterly persecute[ed]” (22). Black codes were also made to control African Americans. Norton et al. states that “the new black codes compelled former slaves to carry passes, observe a curfew, live in housing provided by a landowner, and give up hope of entering many desirable occupations” (476). The discrimination and violence towards African Americans during this era and the laws passed that were not being enforced were very disgraceful. However, Reconstruction was a huge stepping stone for the way our nation is shaped today. It wasn’t pretty but it was the step our nation needed to take. We now live in a country where no matter the race, everyone is considered equal. Reconstruction was a success. Without it, who knows where our nation would be today. African American may have never gained the freedoms they have today without the
Reconstruction gave potential hope and opportunity for the black population even though it failed to bring economic gains to blacks. it instead established social gains as more and blacks migrated to the south, the federal freedman bureau made education more widely available for blacks.
Reconstruction is the period of rebuilding the south that succeeded the Civil War (1861-1865). This period of time is set by the question now what? The Union won the war and most of the south was destroyed. Devastation, buildings turned into crumbles and lost crops. The South was drowning in poverty. To worsen the situation there were thousands of ex-slaves that were set free by the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13 Amendment. "All these ex-slaves", Dr. Susan Walens commented, "and no place to put them," The ex-slaves weren't just homeless but they had no rights, unlike white man. The government and congress had to solve the issues present in the south and the whole nation in order to re-establish the South. These issues were economical, social and political. The United States had 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.
The Southern agriculture was reconfigured in the wake of the Reconstruction by sharecropping and the crop-lien system. Sharecropping was a system they used after the Civil War where a landlord allows african americans to work his land in exchange for some of the crop. Sharecroppers were to have half of what they grew if all the conditions were followed, but if they were not, then they would have two-fifths of what they grew. They were not able to work their own land if there was work to be done one their landlord’s land. The sharecropping system existed because the white plantation workers wanted to bring back a system like slavery, where african americans would work for them for very little pay. The cotton agriculture changed because
... 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 Code works. The southerners wanted control over the blacks after the Civil War, and states created their own Black Codes. After
After the civil war, newly freed slaves faced many challenges. Whites, especially in the south, regarded blacks as inferior more than ever before. The black codes were just one obstacle the freed slaves had to overcome. They were laws that were passed in the southern states that had the intent and the effect of restricting African Americans freedom. These laws made it possible for the south to regain control over the black population in much of the same ways they had before. The black codes effected reconstruction, and even today’s society in many ways.
The Civil war could very easily be known as one of the greatest tragedies in United States history. After the Civil War, the people of The United States had so much anger and hatred towards each other and the government that 11 Southern states seceded from the Nation and parted into two pieces. The Nation split into either the Northern abolitionist or the Southern planation farmers. The Reconstruction era was meant to be exactly how the name announces it to be. It was a time for the United States to fix the broken pieces the war had caused allowing the country to mend together and unite once again. The point of Reconstruction was to establish unity between the states and to also create and protect the civil rights of the former slaves. Although Reconstruction failed in many aspects such as the upraise in white supremacy and racism, the reconstruction era was a time the United States took a lead in the direction of race equality.
During the reconstruction period, African Americans benefited from the civil rights act of March 1866 and the 13th, 14th and 15th amendment. However, for African Americans in the former confederacy, opportunities were limited as in1865 and 1866 the former confederacy states passed black codes’ a replacement of the former slave codes, which once again forcibly cemented the second-class status of African Americans. The most oppressive of the codes was against vagrancy, ...
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. Reconstruction was intended to give African-Americans the chance for a new and better life. Many of them stayed with their old masters after being freed, while others left in search of opportunity through education as well as land ownership. However, this was not exactly an easy task. There were many things standing in their way, chiefly white supremacists and the laws and restrictions they placed upon African-Americans.
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
The laws known as “Jim Crow” were laws presented to basically establish racial apartheid in the United States. These laws were more than in effect for “for three centuries of a century beginning in the 1800s” according to a Jim Crow Law article on PBS. Many try to say these laws didn’t have that big of an effect on African American lives but in affected almost everything in their daily life from segregation of things: such as schools, parks, restrooms, libraries, bus seatings, and also restaurants. The government got away with this because of the legal theory “separate but equal” but none of the blacks establishments were to the same standards of the whites. Signs that read “Whites Only” and “Colored” were seen at places all arounds cities.
The economy started collapsing promptly after the Civil War ended, however former slaves were the cause and effect of a growing nation. Though the nation was starting to boom, former slaves didn’t get their equality in their share, if they were lucky enough to have one. African Americans that made their money in sharecropping lived a rough life and faced many family hardships. Sharecropping was a system by white southerners where freed slaves were allowed to work on cotton farms and gain money for the owner with a little share for themselves, in return for a place to live, food, and medical aid. In spite of the hospitality, the freemen were required to pay for all of the equipment at the end of the year, but most sharecroppers didn’t gain enough
Sharecropping was a farming work method that started in Georgia and moved throughout the south and lasted until the mid-twentieth century. Sharecropping was a way for the poverty stricken, both black and white, to make a living to get by and support their families from land owned by someone else. The owner of the particular land provided shelter, seed, equipment, mules, and tools if they had it. The such farmers who possessed their own mule and machinery were a higher class called tenant farmers, which means that they paid the landowner less money. Also, a local merchant would provide food and the supplies they needed on credit. During the harvest time the sharecropper collected a share of the crop and used the money to pay what he owed to