DBQ Essay By: Paige Cunningham The Civil War started in 1861 because the South wanted to protect their way of life. After many battles and many lives lost in 1865 the South surrendered to the North. This started the era of Reconstruction. Reconstruction went from 1865-1877 and was the period when Congress passed laws designed to rebuild the country and bring the southern states back into the union. it also tried to bring rights to African Americans the issue with this goal was that things did get fixed for a little while like African Americans had voting rights and they had abolished slavery. However, Reconstruction was not successful because it failed to protect the social, economic, and political rights of African Americans. The first …show more content…
Document H is five Black Codes. Which were at the time designed to restrict the freedom of free African Americans. Which did things like force them to need a permit to do anything. They could not have firearms or any kind of weapons. They had to work for a white person or their former owner. They were not allowed to have public meetings within the town that they lived in. They could not own houses in the town, They worked/lived in if they do not work for a white man or former owner, and they were not allowed within the limits of the town unless they had written permission from their employer. On top of all of these unfair and cruel laws, they also had terrible punishments. Like paying five dollars which at that time was a lot of money. Or they would go to jail and work for two days on the public streets where they would be discriminated against by other people walking by. The other piece of evidence comes from Document I. This is a photo of people from the KKK and a white man holding a badge-shaped figure with a skull on the top of it and two black people with their children. This represents the discrimination that they still faced from the public. And the KKK was a huge part of discrimination and violence that was used in a very negative way against African Americans and the federal government did nothing to stop discrimination against African Americans or the