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The Reconstruction Movement

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lack of education and social rights were rampant (Murphy, 1987). Despite all of this, the Reconstruction movement went forward at incredible speeds. Voting rights for the new black citizens were part of this new social change. Even in the northern areas, the new social phenomenon posed by black participation in the electoral process, was remarkable, to say the least. Much of this change in social policy can be credited to the Freedmen’s Bureau and the Union League. These organizations developed during the war years and eventually became strong political branches of the radical wing. While in the South the Reconstruction movement was constantly attack by the local population, usually by making use of intimidation and boycotting, America …show more content…

The poverty and sacrifices of the 1800’s postbellum era were certainly not replicated at the end of the First World War. The new generations of Americans were not lingering in the past, just as their ancestors had done after the national armed conflict. The years between the two world wars produced lasting changes in the American social scene. Urbanization, industrialization, new laws and social openness: they were all crucial in providing the fuel toward a new type of American (Sheldon, 1968). Economic success and social freedoms were part of the advances witnesses by the nation at this time. This was also an era of cultural celebration, which provided the tools for the integration and civil rights movements in the second half of the 20th century. The centuries of servitude and oppression endured by the black population, along with the struggle for the abolition of slavery, were making their mark in American society. New social opportunities pressed black Americans to move, not to the Promised Land that America was supposed to become after the end of the Civil War, but to the Northern and Midwestern states in which racial tensions were not as strong as in the South. This Great Migration, name given to the internal movement of the black man out of rural South to the urban North, led to the discovery of a new social pride for the black man. The Harlem Renaissance was crucial in allowing for social changes in a society that was transforming itself, due to migration, economy, and legal rulings (Johnson, 1944). Unfortunately, the northern states did not offer the warmest of welcomes to the black population migrating from the South. Even though the legal systems were not as difficult as those found in the South, and blacks were offered better opportunities and rights, there were still high levels of prejudice and discrimination. White workers opposed the

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