Reconstruction(1865-1877) was the time period in which the US rebuilt after the Civil War. During this time, the question the rights of freed slaves in the United States were highly debated. Freedom, in my terms, is the privilege of doing as you please without restriction as long as it stays within the law. However, in this sense, black Americans during the Reconstruction period were not truly free despite Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. While legally free, black Americans were still viewed through the lens of racism and deeply-rooted social biases/stigmas that prevented them from exercising their legal rights as citizens of the United States. For example, black Americans were unable to wholly participate in the government as a …show more content…
In a like manner, the spirit of slavery still existed in southern states. In Henry Adams’ statement to the Senate, concerning his first few days of freedom (Doc C), he emphasizes his slave-like treatment with a reference to his travels to Shreveport where he was beaten for saying that he belonged to no one. Likewise, Black Codes (Doc B) passed in Southern states restricted the actions of black Americans within a town or state. Although these would eventually be overturned by the 14th Amendment in 1868 (Doc A), it further demonstrates the lack of freedom that free slaves had during Reconstruction. Conversely, black Americans were granted all the rights of a white citizen. The 14th and 15th amendment to the United States Constitution(Doc A) states that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States… are citizens of the United States… no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens...the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged…” This meant that black Americans now had freedom of speech, freedom to bear arms, and freedom to
“... the slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again toward slavery.” W.E.B. Dubois explains this in his essay North or South: Who Killed Reconstruction? Reconstruction occurred in the eleven states that seceded from the Union. Reconstruction began in 1865 to help bring the eleven states that left the Union this ended in 1877. How exactly did the North or the South make Reconstruction end? Reconstruction occurred in the 12 years after the civil war and was to help bring back the eleven states that seceded from the Union. Both Southern resistance and Northern neglect contributed to the death of Reconstruction. However, Southern resistance was the greater problem.
Reconstruction was a nasty period in History. Reconstruction took place after the civil war. In the civil war there was lots of devastation. Buildings and houses were being destroyed so people needed something called Reconstruction. Reconstruction was something people really needed after the civil war because they needed to rebuild a community. Some people didn't want reconstruction because they liked destruction. Then also after the civil war slavery was abolished, as well some people don't like that either. South killed Reconstruction because South resistance had KKK, and South was murdering people.
Even when the Amendment abolished slavery in 1865, and the black people embraced education, built their own churches, reunited with their broken families and worked very hard in the sharecropping system, nothing was enough for the Reconstruction to succeed. Whites never gave total freedom to African Americans. Blacks were forced to endure curfews, passes, and living on rented land, which put them in a similar situation as slaves. In
...dom and right to vote established by the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, blacks were still oppressed by strong black codes and Jim Crow laws. The federal government created strong legislation for blacks to be helped and educated, but it was ineffective due to strong opposition. Although blacks cried out to agencies, such as the Freemen's Bureau, declaring that they were "in a more unpleasant condition than our former" (Document E), their cries were often overshadowed by violence.
While the formal abolition of slavery, on the 6th of December 1865 freed black Americans from their slave labour, they were still unequal to and discriminated by white Americans for the next century. This ‘freedom’, meant that black Americans ‘felt like a bird out of a cage’ , but this freedom from slavery did not equate to their complete liberty, rather they were kept in destitute through their economic, social, and political state.
Imagine that you are an escaped African slave. After years of being a slave you’ve finally done it, you escaped the terrors that is slavery. You are looking forward to the freedoms that you have heard are promised in the north. However, these “freedoms” are all what they were made out to be. Blacks in the north were to some extent free in the years before the Civil War. This can be shown by looking at four areas of society: political and judicial rights, social freedoms, education and job opportunities, and religious freedom.
Free blacks from the south were facing many situations from the whites from the Jim Crow laws. The Jim Crow laws were to prevent free blacks and other non-whites from being able to vote and have a voice within the government. Laws and statements were established such as the Grandfather Clause, which would prevent anyone whose grandfather could not vote from voting. Since the majority of blacks grandfathers did not vote and was not even free, free blacks in the south were denied the right to vote. Free blacks were now being denied any privilege that non slaves (whites) already had. Their "freedom" was only from slavery, now they realized that they were still a slave to the world. Also during this time blacks were being discriminated against and the lynchings of blacks were occurring. Blacks were becoming endangered and feared for their lives.
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
President Abraham Lincoln envisioned a conservative plan for the reconstruction of the south. Under Lincoln’s plan, as soon as ten percent of the voters in a southern state whom have voted in 1860 and had taken an oath of loyalty to the United States, they could then elect constitutional conventions. These conventions, upon adopting new state constitutions and abolishing slavery they would then be readmitted to the union. The assassination of Abraham Lincoln would change polices towards reconstruction of the south.
After the ending of the Civil War in 1865, slavery was, at last, formally abolished by the Thirteenth Amendment. Due to the freedom of these African Americans and the South’s ever-growing hatred towards this group, African Americans were left to suffer harsh discrimination and horrible conditions. Africans Americans were left without homes, education, jobs, or money. Reconstruction was the Radical Republicans’ attempt to try and bring the Confederate states back to normal and unite both the South and the North into a whole country once again. Reconstruction was also set to protect and help the newly freed African Americans assimilate to the new society and the foreign economy they were placed in. Conditions of the African Americans in the South before, during, and after the reconstruction period were no doubt harsh. African Americans, before the Reconstruction Era, struggled to assimilate with the hateful society they were thrown in, if not still slaves. Although their condition improved slightly, African Americans during the reconstruction period experienced extreme terrorism, discrimination, pressure, and hatred from the south, along with the struggle of keeping alive. After the military was taken out of the South, African Americans’ condition after the Reconstruction Era relapsed back as if Reconstruction never happened.
“Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That all persons born in the United States and not subject to foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States; and such citizens, of every race and color, without regard to any previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall have the same right, in every State and Territory in the united States, to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property, and to full and equal benefits of all law and proceedings for the security of person and property, as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, and penalties, and to none other, any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, to the contrary notwithstanding.”
After the emancipation of slaves in 1862, the status of African-Americans in post civil war America up until the beginning of the twentieth century did not go through a great deal of change. Much legislation was passed to help blacks in this period. The Civil Rights act of 1875 prohibited segregation in public facilities and various government amendments gave African-Americans even more guaranteed rights. 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.
Prior to the Civil War, African Americans were treated as second class individuals. They lacked the freedom and equality they sought for. To the African Americans, the Civil War was a war of liberation. Contrary to what African Americans perceived, Southerners viewed the war as an episode of their journey to salvation. Southern lands may have been destroyed and depleted, but the South was persistent that their racial order would not be disrupted. To most, the goals of the Reconstruction era were to fully restore the Union, and to some, grant emancipation and liberty to former slaves. Although the newly freedmen gained various rights and liberties, their naïve dreams of complete equality and liberation collapsed due to the immense resistance of the South.
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...
This concept was later expanded upon in the Declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson and became the motto of American democracy: “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. However, the founding fathers and their influential Enlightenment Era philosophers often referred to blacks as “savages” and “inferior humans”, denying them these “inalienable” rights. It is through this manipulation of language and human understanding that African Americans were denied the most basic elements of freedom. The Constitution itself is highly influenced by Enlightenment thought and meant to serve as the mark of an egalitarian republic. However, it includes no mention of the word “slave”, yet directly condones the foreign importation of slaves for at least 20 years after its ratification. This is evidence that African Americans were marginalized in their aspirations for freedom, strictly because their subjugated position in society benefited