African American Equality

After the civil war, the struggle between African American freedom and white dominance were at its strongest. These struggles are what would lay the foundation for the lives of the African Americans for many years after.
The plan for reconstruction started after the civil war ended and was the major attempt at trying to create an interracial democracy and fix society, as well as physical rebuilding the country. The ways of the society also were changing very much. The end of slavery led to a hope of economic freedom for the African Americans; allowing them to break free from the grips of white dominance. The chance of equality is what led to the struggle for the whites to try to maintain their supremacy and keep the African Americans at a “lower

Without the North as the support system for the freedmen anymore, the South was able to oppress the freedmen to a point to where it seemed as if slavery was making a comeback. The Whites were able to maintain White supremacy due to their economic status, which was always held higher than that of any African American freedmen. This economic status allowed the Whites to control the way the freedmen acted within the society as well as controlling politics during elections. They were able to achieve what they wanted due to the fact that they were able to control the way the African American freedmen voted. For example, if an African American freedman worked for a White man (which most of them actually did have to), in order to make sure they were able to keep their job, they would vote for anything their White bosses supported for the ability to make sure that they can secure their job and not be

The “Jim Crow” laws were implemented in the South during the beginning of the 1880’s and were heavily enforced. These laws were used in order to segregate the common areas between the whites and the African Americans. Many areas such as the restrooms, schools, and hospitals were each provided separately depending on the color of their skin. Many of the areas reserved for the African Americans were in worse conditions than those reserved for the Whites. This left the freedmen with the more rundown environments while the whites were able to have the best of the best wherever they happened to go. They were also used in order to make the ability to vote more restrictive and difficult to achieve. In order for the freedmen to have the ability to vote many, many obstacles would have to be overcome, such as having to pay a steep poll tax and pass extremely difficult tests, such as literacy tests. Even though the “Jim Crow” style of segregation disfranchised the majority of the freedmen, the South was still able to have it imposed. The reason for the “Jim Crow” laws being able to be enforced upon the society in the South was due to the fact that the freedmen did not have any support of the North to prevent the South from being able to achieve such extremes. Along with this reason,