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Essay About African American Civil Rights

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The civil rights of African Americans were a concern among the majority of Americans before the Civil War. During the war, it became evident that this was the primary cause of the war. The North reigned victor, and with the Emancipation Proclamation, all the former slaves were set free in the South. This was the first step for African Americans to achieve permanent civil rights, but the effort was temporarily put at rest when Reconstruction ended. Ultimately, it was the opposition in the South, and the changing mindset of northern Republicans that made Reconstruction a failure in achieving permanent African American civil rights.
Andrew Johnson took Presidency right as the Reconstruction period began. He wished to control reconstruction without the Legislature, and instead, wanted it to be a matter of Executive authority. Johnson also had little concern for the rights of former slaves, which caused the Radical Republicans to take charge. The Radical Republicans were a group of white northerners in Congress who wanted to acquire citizenship rights for African Americans, and …show more content…

The terrorist group: Ku Klux Klan; allied with the Democratic Party, shared the interest of having strong state rights, and opposition to the Republican Party. The Klan targeted African American leaders with the goal to suppress the black vote. The testimony before the Congressional committee case of the Ku Klux Klan’s actions against Elias Hill; an African American preacher and Republican, is a good example of the Klan targeting an African American who was educated and wielded status. After a forceful interrogation against Hill’s family members, he was removed from his house and beaten viciously by a group of Klan members. After being beaten, the Klan threatened to kill Hill if he did not renounce his support for the Republican Party in the newspaper and stop preaching (Hill Testimony

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