Life for Black People After 1865 Essay

Along with being left with nothing but wasted years, casualties, and deeper in debt, the Confederates lost their cause and this made them angry. The Ku Klux Klan offered protection and support along with what they thought was justice. “To protect the weak, the innocent, and the defenseless, from the indignities, wrongs, and outrages of the lawless, the violent, and the brutal; the relieve the injured and oppressed; to succor the suffering and unfortunate and specially the widows and orphans of the Confederate soldiers.” This support and understanding that the Ku Klux Klan offered was attractive to the poor white Southerners. The Ku Klux Klan imposed extreme fear on African American, their purpose to discourage the African American vote for the Republican party. This in turn defeated the whole purpose as to why the Fifteenth Amendment was passed. A direct quote from: Political Terrorism by the Ku Klux Klan. “Q: What are they afraid of? A: Of being killed or whipped to death. Q: What has made them afraid? A: Because men that voted radical tickets they took the spite out on the women when they could get at them.” This primary document only adds to the point that African Americans during the Reconstruction period were terrorized and pressured to do what the Confederates demanded. Although all African Americans were free and Reconstruction had taken effect, African Americans in the South were still not living in peace during

As much as Reconstruction had initially tried to help the South, it was the sole goal of this movement to, “undo as much as possible of Reconstruction.” State facilities originally that were supposed to help everyone were closed down, and the gap between black and white expenditures on schooling increased. Due to the depression in the 1890’s this worsened the situation for black families trying to make a living in the South couldn’t keep up their farms or the places that their children would learn. “In 1900, no public high schools for blacks existed in the South. Black elementary schools, one observer reported, occupied buildings “as bad as stables””. New laws about segregation also affected blacks in more ways than just demoralization, it also showed what kind of jobs were considered good work for them. In the instance of segregation on railroads, “many blacks could be found in “whites only” railroad cars. But they entered as servants and nurses, not as paying customers entitled to equal treatment. The rise of lynching also affected the way blacks lived their lives, by controlling the way they vote, how they treated whites, and how they couldn’t rely on the justice system to address their grievances. An example of the reduced number of voters is best seen in Louisiana, where the number of voters dropped from 130, 000 to 1, 342, which is directly linked to the use of violence as a way to intimidate black voters. Blacks also had to be careful how they acted around white, since murder wasn’t a federal crime and was handled by the state, many blacks were lynched without fair trials and accused of crimes like raping white women, murder, and theft. A majority of the accused never when to trial. All in all blacks in the South were largely affected negatively as a result in policy changes, social factors, and widespread violence. This injustice carried on

The Civil War and Reconstruction periods had many positive outcomes for America, such as the reunification of the Union, the expansion of the North and South’s economy, education for all, and much more. Although there were many positive results from these two periods, there was also an aftermath of much failure. The post Civil War, and Reconstruction period consisted of the formation of the Ku Klux Klan and the black code laws. Despite the fact that African American’s were no longer slaves, in many ways they were still not free. Furthermore, the creation of things such as the Ku Klux Klan and the black codes created high tension between the black and white races, a tension that can be argued is still present in modern day America. This essay will examine the aspects of how the post Civil War and Reconstruction period was a failure with regards to social, economic and political, and radical development for newly freed slaves.

In the Civil War in 1865, many slaves got their freedom but were still being controlled by the whites and government. Black codes were being passed by Southern states to control the labor and behavior of former slaves and African Americans. The Ku Klux Klan became a structure for white southern resistance to the Republican Party’s Reconstruction. The purpose of the Reconstruction was to bring the South together to be part of the Union. The success and failures of Reconstruction negatively impacted the political, social, and economic lives of newly freed African Americans in the south. It impacted them in a negative way politically because the government wasn’t fair with the newly freed African Americans. Many families were getting separated

The newly freed slaves were gaining rights that were always only a dream with legal marriage, education, and power over their children’s lives. However, Black Codes were being used to recreate slavery and were making it hard for African Americans to own property and function in society. (Lecture 1/29/16) Their rights were not given without many exceptions including that African Americans who were convicted of felonies were being put back to work on farms that they were just given the freedom to leave, and all of a sudden it was much easier to get a felony charge for being black and not having a job were considered committing a crime. President Johnson’s neglect of action in southern states was making it nearly impossible for the former slaves to function in society, even after The Civil Rights Act of 1866, and leads into the creation of the Ku Klux Klan

Slavery was abolished in the 1800's in America. This gave freedom to many colored ethnic groups in America. Now, freedom was granted to these people, but from 1865 to the early 20th century, these colored Americans did not get the respect and rights they deserved. The right to vote for most was never given up until 1965. Segregation was a major thing for these people, and even the right to fight for their country in the world wars was discriminating.

In the years 1863-1877, blacks were able to make their first successful efforts in terms of empowerment, creating the foundation for future African American movements. During reconstruction, African Americans, through collaboration and politics, began to work at equal rights. By empowering themselves politically, building communities and fighting against the lynching efforts of the KKK and other anti-black terrorist groups, African Americans began a movement to combat racism in the United States.

Following the Civil War drew to an end, however the social, political and economic conditions did not, infact it only grew within the rebellious southern states fueled discussion about the reconstruction. Social, political and economic conditions impacted the reconstruction era. The KKK impacted socially in 1865, their reign of terror was felt throughout the south. Their organization spread fear using guerilla tactics, whipping, beating, and lynching. The Klan’s purpose was to destroy the republican party as revenge for the abolishment of slavery. They wanted to destroy the republican party infrastructure and end reconstruction control in southern black population. The era of Reconstruction there were massive changes in American culture, economy,

On December 6, 1865, slavery was officially abolished because of the ratification of the 13th amendment of the United States, but social injustice, racism, and abuse was very prominent for decades after the abolishment of slavery. “African Americans were still being lynched at a high rate and public schools where still very segregated” throughout the

When the Civil War came to a close one hundred fifty years ago, the Union forces ended up victorious. The future seemed bright for the newly emancipated Blacks of the South; no longer bound in servitude, freed slaves must have felt indescribable joy. Sadly, what seemed like a dream come true quickly became a hellish nightmare. White Southerners were beside themselves with rage against Americans they considered property who were now their equals, at least in the eyes of the law. This fury fueled brutal and malicious racial violence in both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Lynching, intimidation, destruction of property, and other acts of terrorism were quite prevalent throughout Texas. Yet, despite the multitude of physical and political

Considering the Civil War was the first time that a large group of people were fighting for the freedom of African Americans, it would be true to state that the Civil War dramatically changed the lives of African Americans throughout the nation. This remark is accurate because, after the Union’s win, African Americans were given basic rights such as the right to vote, own property, and marry whites. However, because many Southerners continued to oppose these decisions, they created organizations such as the KKK that opposed these ideas and threatened the well being of African Americans. So, as a result of the African American lifestyle changing, many individuals in the South, mostly slave owners, lives change due to the major decrease in free-labor.

The dilemma facing African Americans during the first few decades after emancipation was profound. The post Civil War-Reconstruction era in the South was one where African Americans had political voting rights, members of Congress, and a vision for the future that would extend the principles of democratic government to all black people. Quickly though, it changed to a situation that was akin to slavery itself. With the removal of the Federal forces in the South following Reconstruction, the gains that were made eroded both political power and the civil rights of African Americans. Economically, millions of poor southern blacks were trapped in the sharecropping system structured to ensure that they provided cheap agriculture labor for the benefit of white landlords. Throughout the South, with the institution of the Jim Crow laws, blacks began to be excluded from all public accommodations, denied access to schools and other essential services, and restricted from living in certain residential areas. Essential to the racist assault against black people’s rights was lynching, fear and death.

After the following victory of the Northern Unionist over the Confederate forces in the Civil War, the current president of USA Abraham Lincoln had followed through with his Emancipation Proclamation this time of period was soon to be known as the Reconstruction era. Through these actions of Abraham Lincoln this had resulted in the passing of amendments to the constitution in which where 13th,14th, 15th these amendments had given African Americans the one thing they had been long aching for and worked hard for which was they rights. These Amendments also gave the ability for organisations such as Freedmen`s Bureau to be created in which they would seek the progress of black rights and reduce discrimination. However with the progress came resistance which had slowed down the progress due to the lack of change in society. Even though they had been little improvement there had been acts which held back the black community such as the Black codes these were invented to stop any progression for black it also meant that former salves where tied to the former owner this was called sharecropping. This also lead to the change of discrimination to being racist such as the creations of organisations such as Ku Klux Klan had been set up which had gone around brutally attacking and even killing former slaves this was done to create fear and show the black slaves there place. On the other had there had been some aspects of black lives which improved but these where small changes of

In 1869 on Feb. 26, Congress sends the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution to the states for approval. The amendment would guarantee black Americans the right to vote. In 1875 Congress approved the Civil Rights Act on March 1, guaranteeing equal rights to black Americans in public accommodations and jury duty. The legislation was invalidated by the Supreme Court in 1883.

The black people who engaged in this struggle sought to reverse the state of things that came from the United States past. The slave labor regime was prevalent in the southern states of the USA, where the basic economic model with large land holdings prevailed. The problem is that in the year of 1861 to 1865 there was a war and the slave model, so it began to appear resistance to the reality of the freedom of the black people in the southern states. An example of notorious was the ex-southern combatant, Nathan Bedford Forrester, who in 1865 founded the Ku Klux Klan, a racist religion group and paramilitary group. Even with attempts to stifle the type of organization by the federal government