More handpicked essays just for you.
The importance of the reconstruction era
Characteristics of reconstruction era
The importance of the reconstruction era
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
The effects of Jim Crow were deeply imbedded into the culture of America. Jim Crow became a powerful force in white America through legislation, racism, and housing differences. After the falling out of the white supremacist ability to hold power, the elite whites found “loopholes” to pass legislation in order to maintain the racial hierarchy to oppress. A major turn in this was the Supreme Court decision of Plessy vs. Ferguson in 1896, ruling that “separate but equal” is constitutional.
For nearly a century, the United States was occupied by the racial segregation of black and white people. The constitutionality of this “separation of humans into racial or other ethnic groups in daily life” had not been decided until a deliberate provocation to the law was made. The goal of this test was to have a mulatto, someone of mixed blood, defy the segregated train car law and raise a dispute on the fairness of being categorized as colored or not. This test went down in history as Plessy v. Ferguson, a planned challenge to the law during a period ruled by Jim Crow laws and the idea of “separate but equal” without equality for African Americans. This challenge forced the Supreme Court to rule on the constitutionality of segregation, and in result of the case, caused the nation to have split opinions of support and
The problems that came after this were caused by the Vietnam War. Because all of the US resources needed to go into funding the war, African Americans were left out to dry once again by the government. This is shown when Martin Luther King Jr. says, “The promises of the Great Society have been shot down on the battlefield of Vietnam” (Painter 305). In the drafting of the war, more black people were drafted which caused problems because now Blacks were dying in larger numbers than whites and that was yet another inequality that enraged African Americans. This time period was one of success and defeat in the eyes of the African American people.
Local and state governments enacted laws that mandated separation between Blacks and Whites. Such separateness was almost always unequal, despite the Supreme Court’s 1896 “separate but equal” ruling in Plessy vs. Ferguson. Blacks were confined to substandard bathrooms, parks, water fountains, restaurants, schools, and hospitals. They generally received a poor education, which hindered their ability to advance. White Southerners subjugated African-Americans whose work options were limited and whose pay lagged behind that of Whites.
Peter Schroeder Dr. Christopher Marshall Modern United States History 2/2/17 Writing Assignment 1: The African-American Experience with Reconstruction Reconstruction among the south refers to the point in time which the United States was attempting to establish a relationship between the union and the rebels. The Union had won the civil war, so the next step was to begin to mend the broken relationship between the north and the south. Though historians cannot agree on when it began, there is merit in saying that it started before the end of the Civil War. After victory, had been solidified for the Union, attention of President Lincoln turned towards reconstruction.
Though technically free after the Civil War, black people were often still bound to plantation owners during reconstruction. Slaves who had had no freedom beforehand did not have jobs and were therefore not able to up and leave their homes. Plantation owners who were looking for cheap labor after losing their slaves took advantage of this situation and created sharecropping, which allowed for freed slaves to rent land in exchange for tending the crops and giving a share of what they harvested to the owner (Sharecropping: Slavery by Another Name). There were good years and bad years for harvesting, and if sharecroppers were unable to produce a certain amount of crop in one year, they became indebted to the landowner and were unable to leave the plantation. Laws catering to the landowners were put in place that prevented sharecroppers from being able to move off of the plantation if they were in debt and also made it illegal for sharecroppers to sell any part of their
As difficult as the economic crisis of the Great Depression was for white Americans, it was even harder on racial minorities, including black Americans, Mexican Americans, American Indians, and Asian Americans. In 1933 the general unemployment rate in the United States was over 25 percent; at the same time, unemployment rates for various American minorities ranged up to 50 percent or more. Given the severe racial discrimination in almost every facet of daily life in America through the 1920s, it was hard for many minorities to distinguish much difference between the Great Depression and "normal" economic times. Nonetheless, for these groups the Great Depression was worse than "normal" economic hardships they had suffered.
Black activism rose greatly during the Reconstruction. Before the dreadful Civil war, African Americans could vote in only the higher Northern states, because of segregation Sadly, they had no office holders. Because of this, many blacks organized Equal Rights Leagues throughout the South, during the first two years of the Reconstruction. Regulating the lives of freed people, the Congress created “black codes”. Black activism grew a lot!
After the Civil War ended, bringing freedom to enslaved African-Americans, they still had one more major social issue to fight, segregation. Segregation lasted from the end of the Civil War to the 1960s. During this time, the South and the North both faced segregation, but the South primarily faced the most racial tensions. This time frame in American history was known as the Jim Crow era. Additionally, African-Americans faced many hardships during this time, such as unclean bathrooms, unequal and separate water fountains, voting restrictions, and awful schooling compared to whites.
The reconstruction period was a failure because African Americans, mainly males, were not treated with equality although the constitution said that the they were free and had the right to vote, be educated and had the right to liberty, life and the pursuit to happiness. Organizations, like the KKK, were created to harm freed slaves and their families. Laws were created such as the Black Codes restricting former slaves from their rights. African Americans endured a lot of violence over the years. “In Grayson, Texas, a white man and two friends murdered three former slaves because the wanted to ‘ thin the niggers out and drive them to their hole’”.
Racism’s Impact on Reconstruction While the issue of slavery evidently contributed to the divide that resulted in the American Civil War, it is debated whether prevailing ideals of racism caused the failure of the era following the war known as Reconstruction. With the abolishment of slavery, many of the southern states had to reassemble the social, economic, and political systems instilled in their societies. The Reconstruction Era was originally led by a radical republican government that pushed to raise taxes, establish coalition governments, and deprive former confederates of superiority they might have once held. However, during this time common views were obtained that the South could recover independently and that African Americans
However, changes that were made during Reconstruction greatly impacted the lives of many African Americans. While some efforts were made to achieve a status of equality, many suffered continuous discrimination and were denied (deprived of) their basic civil
after slavery was abolished, the southern states passed laws to segregate blacks and whites. The segregation included separate schools for blacks and whites. A challenge to these laws reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in 1896 in Plessy v. Ferguson that it was a reasonable use of state power to require "separate but equal" accommodations for blacks.
Post Civil War, African Americans started to gain rights to gain rights, and soon gain rights equal to whites. While there were some people/things standing in their way (KKK, Black Codes), in the end they got what they needed; Equality. Many acts and laws were passed to aid the new rights now held by African Americans, as well as the numerous people willing to help. New Amendments were added to give African Americans rights after the war, all giving them some equal rights to whites. The first of the three added was the Thirteenth Amendment, it gave African Americans freedom from slave owners, and stated that no one could be kept as a slave in the U.S..
Jim Crow was the primary reason for society separating into civil, social, and political. Jim Crow was not passed as an inscribed law worldwide, but was rather a combination of state and local laws made up of codes which held agreements to enforced segregation differently across the country. For instance, in the reasoning of the Supreme Court in The Civil Rights Cases, it struck down most of the Civil Rights Act of 1875 as beyond the reach of the Fourteenth Amendment. Also, Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, which upheld racial segregation in railroad cars as merely a restriction of a social right, not an infringement of a protected civil right. Differentiating the category of civil rights from other categories of rights was thus at the heart of the civil rights project from the start.
