Freedmen Vs Reconstruction

“... the slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again towards slavery” (W.E.B. Dubois). Reconstruction, though it was ended, was created to rebuild the Union. The main intentions of Reconstruction was to have the southern states that seceded to rejoin the Union and to establish and protect the right of the newly freed slaves, commonly known as freedmen. Three new amendments were added to the Constitution during this period, giving basic rights to freedmen, like voting, citizenship, and freedom. Things like racism and terrorism in the South ripped through the precious fabric of Reconstruction, tearing it to shreds. Although both the North and the South can take the blame, the South was far more responsible for ending

They had one obvious and basic mentality: white supremacy. The South created the Jim Crow laws, more commonly known as segregation. The separation of the races was strictly enforced. Blacks and whites had separate restrooms, schools, water fountains, hospitals, even cemeteries (America: History of Our Nation, 560). The laws forced African Americans to take separate buses and trains, and even though the ruling “separate but equal” was untrue, the courts always ruled the laws legal. The South also created poll taxes and literacy tests to prevent blacks from voting. The poll tax was a fee that was to be paid before voting. The freedmen had little to no money, so some were barred from voting. The literacy test was a test to be taken before voting to see if a person could read or write. Most of the times, the person had to read a passage from the Constitution, and analyze it. Most freedmen were uneducated and illiterate, therefore, they could not vote. The South also made a grandfather clause to help the illiterate white males, which said that if the man’s father or grandfather was able to vote on January 1st, 1867, they could automatically bypass the literacy test. This law was grossly unfair because the slaves were not freed until 1868. Nearly all freedmen could not vote due to this (America: History of Our Nation, 560). There was also racism in the North, but in the South, it was much more prevalent, and most times, racism turned to

Terrorist groups like the infamous group of white supremacists, the Ku Klux Klan. They rampaged through the South, terrorizing anyone who wasn’t like them, from freedmen to carpetbaggers to scalawags. They sparked deep fear in the hearts of many. The Ku Klux Klan wore hoods to hide their faces when they went after their victims. They left miniature coffins as warnings and, at night, the Klansmen would drive by the houses of the black voters and yell threats. If the target still disobeyed them, they would turn to violence. They tortured, whipped, shot, or hung the victim (America: History of Our Nation, 557). The Klan frequently made a scene of the murder. For example, a Republican senator named John W. Stephens was found stabbed to death and hung on hook in the Grand Jury room for all to see (Document A). Also, a black legislator for Georgia, Abram Colby, was whipped because he voted Republican. The Klan bribed him to step down from his seat in government, and he refused. He was whipped many times more. He described the men who tortured him as first-class men who were highly respected in the town such as doctors, lawyers, and farmers (Document B). Many called it “worse than slavery”. Hundreds of lives were taken during the time period of Reconstruction, just by the Ku Klux