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The Civil War And Reconstruction Period Essay

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The Civil War and Reconstruction period provided African American people with a legal definition of citizenship through three constitutional amendments. Beginning with the 13th Amendment slavery was abolished, then 14th Amendment provided equal protection under the law, and lastly the 15th Amendment allowed all men, including African Americans, the ability to vote. However, the transition from enslavement to freedom was a difficult and terrifying one for most black women as they had little or no money, limited or no education and little access to it, and faced racism that impacted every aspect of their lives. However, the Reconstruction period in America promised African Americans a new life of freedom with the same inalienable rights provided to other American citizens and allowed for many social reforms to take place during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries due to the efforts of African American women. The period from the 1860s to the turn of the twentieth century, or the Reconstruction period, marked a transitional era of mixing a new socioeconomic and political infrastructure into the United States. Reconstruction was a comprehensive era that united the once disregarded demographic groups of African Americans into mainstream America. With emancipation of blacks throughout the nation and the post-war constitutional amendments, this period observed the historical extension of social and political liberties to four million emancipated African-Americans.

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