Emancipation greatly impacted former slaves. Emancipation allowed slaves to finely be free of their masters and start their own lively hoods. Emancipated slaves however faced difficult handicaps. Emancipated slaves possessed no property, tools, or capital, they had meager skills, and at least 95 percent of emancipated slaves were illiterate. Emancipation affected all freedmen differently, but created the opportunity to find and make families, get jobs, provide education, participate in politics, and create religious and social institutions. Black female emancipated slaves fared well as citizens to. Many emancipated slaves sought to find lost family members. The efforts of emancipated slaves to find lost family members prompted many to move …show more content…
Many freed slaves returned to their locales but most often worked for neighboring plantations then for their original owners. A lot of freedmen lacked money to buy land, and equipment to work the land. White southerners most often refused to sell land to blacks as well. Landowners also lacked labor and freemen most often lacked land, and with cash being scarce many freedmen became sharecroppers. Landowners would dived their land into farms and rent them to freedmen for a share of their crop most often half (The Enduring Vison pg. …show more content…
Blacks organized their own schools and soon after the Freedmen’s Bureau supervised. Northern philanthropic societies paid the earnings of teachers which were usually women. In 1869 the bureau estimated more than four thousand black schools were created constructed in the former Confederacy. During the next three years every southern state had a public school system, usually with separate schools for blacks and whites. Advanced schools were even constructed to train tradespeople, teachers, and ministers. The Freedmen’s Bureau and northern organizations such as the American Missionary Association helped fund Howard, Atlanta, and Frisk universities during 1866 to 1867 and Hampton Institute in 1868. Despite all this black education remained limited. Most rural blacks could reach freedmen’s schools that were located in towns. Underfunded black public schools most often held classes for short seasons and even drew vigilante attacks sometimes. Towards the end of reconstruction upwards of eighty percent of blacks were still illiterate, but literacy steadily maid gains for younger generations (The Enduring vison pg. 484,