A. The Reconstruction period took place after the Civil war from 1865-1877 by Abraham Lincoln to rebuild the South that occupied Union soldiers. There were many changes that affected African-Americans, such as amendments 13-15, which gave them certain rights. This period was very important for Blacks in America, it was the time when they were completely free from slavery and the citizenship changed how they lived their lives. They were given civil rights, which gave them the right to sue or sit on juries, voting, and owning property. This time frame also gave us the creation of the first public school systems in the South. There were changes in the labor force and working conditions, which came about with sharecropping. (Norton, 2015) One …show more content…
This amendment granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States. Which meant that all people, including former slaves, including those freed after the Civil War, were now considered citizens. This was also known as the Reconstruction Amendment, which forbade states to deny life, liberty and land without due process. It also stated that everyone is entitled to equal protection under the law. The 15th Amendment gave African-American men the right to vote, which became ratified in February 1870. It stated that the right to vote couldn’t be denied to any citizen, regardless of race, color, or being a former slave. There were organizations created in order educate and train in the registration process in voting, for Blacks. Even though the Southern states were finding ways to make African-Americans ineligible to vote, such as literacy tests and using polling taxes. (Norton, …show more content…
The downside was that the government found it a necessity to increase tax rates, this meant that there was money available for use regardless of the value of the properties around them. They found that the African American teachers would continue to teach but to the adult than students after hours and because of this many were motivated to read the Bible, now that they could. The result was that white supremacists would go around terrorizing the teachers and students, claiming that they had no right to learn and that they were better off, being uneducated. There was a tremendous thirst for education among freed people, however, and black churches often took over the task of providing it. ("America's Reconstruction: People and Politics After the Civil War",
Reconstruction government made many changes. It strengthened public education and made it available to black children. It strengthened public education and made it available to black children. It also helped the position of women by expanding legal rights for women.
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.
Many issues kept Reconstruction from helping the newly freed slaves. For instance, the vast majority of former slaves were uneducated. In many southern states, before and during the Civil War, the educating of slaves was illeg...
...ious slaves the right to citizenship, meaning they were able to do anything that a normal citizen could do, for example hold seats of power. The Fifteenth amendment ensured that they were given the right to vote. However, the reason that their accomplishments were in vain was because they did not get rid of racism. Whatever advancement they made was taken back due to whites still believing in racism. After the Reconstruction era, the South feared an African American with power so they formed hate groups and technicalities to get around amendments. Even though the Fourteenth amendment ensured that slaves were given the right to citizenship, the whole ideal of “separate but equal” came into play. With the Fifteenth amendment, the South was able to justify the racist action of enforcing a literacy clause or a grandfather clause by writing it into their constitution.
... and slavery left millions of newly freed African Americans in the South without an education, a home, or a job. Before reconstruction was put in place, African Americans in the South were left roaming helplessly and hopelessly. During the reconstruction period, the African Americans’ situation did not get much better. Although helped by the government, African Americans were faced with a new problem. African Americans in the South were now being terrorized and violently discriminated by nativist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. Such groups formed in backlash to Reconstruction and canceled out all the positive factors of Reconstruction. At last, after the Compromise of 1877, the military was taken out of the South and all of the Reconstruction’s efforts were basically for nothing. African Americans in the South were back to the conditions they started with.
The 15th Amendment was written by George Washington Julian. This amendment was passed on February 26, 1869 and was ratified February 3, 1870. The 15th Amendment was very significant to many Americans of different races because it changed their lives forever by allowing them to vote. “The present difficulty, in bringing all parts of the United States to a happy unity and love of country grows out of the prejudice to color. The prejudice is a senseless one, but it exists,” said U.S. Grant, 1869.
Once freed, African Americans believed that the rights of a citizen were granted to them. They truthfully believed this because after a brutally fought war, basic rights such as education, land, and employment were so modest, they were undeniable. Even though they were proclaimed as free, their place is society remained unaffected. The Freedmen's Bureau became one of the earlier agencies to provide support for newly freedmen. The agency offered education, advice and protection to its members. The most significant asset of the bureau was education. The literacy rate of African Americans rose about twenty percent due to the organization. Some freedmen even attended colleges to earn degrees. Many white Southerners viewed the African American attempt at education as a waste of time. They condemned the efforts of their social improvement. With much criticism by racist whites and inadequate funds, the Freedmen's Bureau concluded by 1872 injuring African American hopes of social equality.
One way their lives enhanced was the establishment of the Freedmen’s Bureau. The Freedmen’s Bureau was an organization developed by Congress that assisted African Americans to acquire an education and provided necessities of life such as food and clothing. Freedman’s Bureau set up public schools for African Americans to receive an education. Initially, most of the teachers were white Northern women. However, it became increasingly more African Americans as time progresses. The centralization of black community, outstanding attempted trying to recruit freedmen, the right gained to vote for African Americans, the establishment of public education for newly freed slaves, etc. were some of the significant changes in African American
Following what was arguably the most turbulent time in American history; Reconstruction had far-reaching effects on a number of areas of life in the United States. In the Deep South, one of the clearest impacts could be seen on racial relations, specifically between whites and newly-freed African Americans. Legally, dramatic changes had been made at the federal level, providing African Americans with a host of rights that had never been offered them before. It was no wonder, then, that former slave owners in the South rejected these changes and rights, taking whatever steps necessary to keep African Americans down. The dramatic changes that took place in terms of race relations between African Americans and whites following Reconstruction had a far-reaching impact on society, with the shockwaves of these changes being felt nearly a century into the future.
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the States wherein the reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of laws; this brief description is known as the Fourteenth Amendment (Foner A-15).
The Reconstruction era was a time period referring to the trials and errors/mistakes made in and by the United States. In an attempt to restructure and improve the laws and systems of politics, legality and economics . Before the Reconstruction era was the Civil War ( occurred for 4 years ) in the United states was the main reason and cause of how slavery came to be abolished . After the abolition of slavery , there were legal laws put in place for the protection and welfare of newly freed slaves although these laws were brought in to protect slaves , the whites succeeded on bringing in laws that denied the blacks of their rights , the blacks newly found freedom and was the whites way of forcing blacks into slavery status and to portray to the black population that they were at that time believed to be the superior race. The Reconstruction era was meant to be a time of change but blacks saw it as an era of disorder and inequality as well as seeing slavery as a form of social death. ( Illustrates the division during Reconstruction between a hostile South and an apath...
During and succeeding the Era of Reconstruction, African American lives were reformed in very substantial ways. Most African Americans thought of Reconstruction as an opportunity to improve the lives of their entire race. They thought it would help them bring equality to their people. However, Reconstruction showed many African Americans how difficult it was to survive independently. Once they left their plantations, they had nowhere to live. African Americans living in the south struggled to find food and shelter. To make matters much worse, Southern Whites were beginning to fight to retain southern white supremacy. “Reconstruction did not provide African Americans with either the legal protections or the material resources to ensure anything
After the Civil War, the 15th amendment gave African Americans the right to vote . On paper this amendment gave African Americans the right to vote, southern states began to implement Jim Crow laws which restricted African Americans from voting through things such as poll taxes and literacy tests. In the North “racism increasingly restricted the lives and opportunities of the growing number of blacks” . Despite racism in the North and the Jim Crow laws in the South effectively restricting African American citizenship, I feel the framers would fear that the 15th amendment would increase the chances that a tyrannical faction would form and that it would make regulating the effects of factions more difficult. Eventually, the Civil rights act of 1964 abolished Jim Crow laws making the process of voting for African Americans easier. I think that any expansion of who can vote is against what the framers intended as the more people who are allowed the vote, the more powerful and larger factions
The passage of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States gave African-Americans recognized rights under the law. However, a national commitment to the civil and political rights of all U.S. citizens without regard to matters of race was destined to last less then a decade.4