Unfair Laws in a Fair Time

These state laws varied in strictness and detail from state to state; they abased the status of the freedmen by regulating their activities and treating them as social and civil inferiors. Generally black codes were not beneficial, because the supposedly freedmen were treated little more than slaves. "Furthermore, to define the status of freed men and women and control their labor, some legislatures merely revised large sections of the slave codes by substituting the word freedmen for slave." (pg. 448 Nortan) Congress would not stand for such injustice.

Even though slavery was now prohibited, freed blacks were now left alone to struggle finding simple things like a roof to live in and a job to work for. Meanwhile, President Abraham Lincoln wanted to give the south humane conditions for them to be accepted back into the union and also wanted to give African Americans and former soldiers the right to vote, but that wasn’t very successful when put into the hands of Congress. Soon after Lincoln was killed in 1865, President Andrew Johnson came into presidency and changed the conditions giving African Americans a harder time adapting to their new lives as freedmen. Furthermore, the south became very violent against the blacks and came up with black codes, which put freed blacks as closely as possible back into a slave state. These black codes prohibited interracial marriages, the ownership of guns or liquor, congregation in large groups and had curfews for these freedmen.

He instead supported the discrimination of freed slaves and a government that li... ... middle of paper ... ...rican Americans struggled in new communities and the KKK created even more difficulties for them. Members of the Klan dressed in all white burning black schools, homes and churches. State governments within the South remained helpless silently supporting these violent acts. The Klan used terror tactics like beating and sometimes killing to threaten African Americans and other people who supported them; the organizations major goal was to reestablish white control. Racial violence by Klan members continued to grow throughout the South despite efforts of reformation by the Union.

Jim Crow Laws were an extreme obstacle in the integration of African Americans. Hate Groups were another attempt to restrain blacks from integrating into society. Although the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments were designed to provide freedom for the slaves, they were still denied their freedom by specific obstacles. Although the Thirteenth Amendment outlawed slavery, whites kept their supremacy by finding legal ways to control blacks. Many white Southerners were not in favor of the 13th Amendment so many Southern states enforced Black Codes, which basically returned blacks to slavery without calling it slavery.

Since African American were kept out of society for more than 200 years, it was hard for whites to accepted blacks as equal people. Southern states passed the Black Codes, which restricted African Americans freedom. The point of the codes was to reduce influence of free blacks which were granted some rights during the Presidential Reconstruction, to prevent them from voting, bearing arms, be together to worship and learning to read and write. They also imposed restrictions on black citizenship to be able to still control labor of blacks. Another factor which made it harder for freed slaves to enter the society was the Ku Klux Klan organization, which can be described as “Original American Terrorist Organizations”.

However, just because of the new amendment it was not going to be taken seriously by citizens because they did not change their beliefs. The controversy that the blacks faced when they were newly emancipated was very violent because they did not have the respect of the whites and they would not be treated equally. To continue, the first state to create laws governing the issue of free blacks and restricting what they could do in everyday life was Mississippi. They wanted to restrict what they could do... ... middle of paper ... ...eliefs on how blacks are received. The Emancipation Proclamation was a major turning point in our country’s modern history, but reconstruction caused major conflicts that to many years to resolve.

The period of rebuilding after the Civil War was termed the Era of Reconstruction. During this period the government was supposed to help build back the South and strengthen the Union. The government, however, failed to help the South complete the transition into life without slavery. The government disregarded the treatment of African Americans and allowed the South to continue to treat them badly. The government also failed to help stabilize the economy for the South, and the political situation was filled with distrust and corruption.

Reconstruction was not a success because it resulted in the implementation of the Black Codes, the formation of the Klu Klux Klan, and the failure of the Freedmen's Bureau. The Civil War left the South destroyed and , as a reunited country, the government was tasked with developing a strategy for reconnecting the North and South and rebuilding the land destroyed by the battles. President Abraham Lincoln presented a method for reconstruction, but upon his death, the idea was abandoned. Lincoln's vice president, Andrew Johnson presented another theory that was also dismissed. To begin work on reconstruction in 1865, the Freedmen's Bureau was formed as a welfare agency that educated free blacks and promised to give all former slaves forty acres of ex-Confederate land.

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.

At any rate, the climate of the Revolution made the organization not right in the minds of many Northerners, who did not rely on forced labor as part of the economic system. Northerners didn’t go as far as to give equal rights to free the blacks. Many slaves have gotten their freedom during the Revolution without being able to be free. In the American south the british had freed many slaves.Lots of slaves in the North got their freedom because they said they would fight for America. Although, clear most of African Americans remained in a bond, the growth of free black communities in America was raised by the War for American to be free.