What Changes Did African Americans Face During Reconstruction Essay

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois once said, “the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line.” He refers “color” as race and how race is a social category used to assign human worth and social status using whites as the superior race and the minorities as the inferior. That’s what America is facing during Reconstruction. When the Reconstruction Era transitioned into the New South Era, the lives of Freedmen changed socially, economically, and politically for the worse. Although southern whites were still unpleasant to African Americans during Reconstruction, it got more severe socially in the New South Era. White southerners intended to restrict the rights of citizenship to Freedmen as much as possible to replace slavery

Former slaves had no place to live or work, so they started working for their former masters. They had a system of working called sharecropping. Under this system, Freedmen rented a plot of land and paid the plantation owner a certain percentage of the crop which depended on how much the renter owed in supplies (www.njstatelib.org). Sharecropping became really popular in the South, and African Americans were the labor source for it (Doc D). At first, Sharecropping seemed like a good deal for the African Americans, but sharecropping became a system where croppers were greatly exploited. Planters charged outrageously high prices and interest rates for the supplies purchased by sharecroppers. This made it to where the croppers legally were bound to keep working for the planters to try to pay off the debt. But, each year, they would get more and more in debt, making an economic nightmare in the

During the beginning of Reconstruction, Congress passed the 15th Amendment which stated that the right to vote will not be denied to anyone no matter their race, color, or previous servitude. It also states that the Congress has the right to enforce this amendment if it is not being enforced by the state governments (Doc E). That Amendment made it possible for blacks to vote for the first time ever in American history (Doc A). Since African Americans were able to vote, they voted to be represented by fellow Freedmen in the Senate and Congress (Doc B). Then, a group called the Klu Klux Klan, “dedicated itself to an underground campaign of violence against Republican leaders and voters (both black and white) in an effort to reverse the policies of Radical Reconstruction and restore white supremacy in the South” (www.history.com). The Klan would use violence as their tactic to scare away Freedmen from voting, and it worked. America went from where Freedmen could vote and be protected, to risking their lives to vote or speak out against the Klan. The Klan ended all progress of equality for Freedmen, and progress wouldn’t start up again till many years