How Did African Americans Change From 1865 To 1900

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Paper #1, Prompt #3 The South experienced many changes during the time period of 1865 to 1900 after the Civil War. African American slaves and the Southern states being accepted into the Union played major roles in the Souths changes from 1865 to 1900. During these years the South went through a time of Reconstruction to transform the new Southern States of the United States. Newly freed African Americans had the most difficult time adjusting to the new life and the Southern Whites were still upset about the victory of the Civil War. After the end of the Civil War, former slaves were freed by the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and later the Thirteenth Amendment abolished all slavery. The freed slaves then set out to create independent …show more content…

During this time African Americans lost voting rights, separate public accommodations were instituted, legal segregation occurred, and the separate but equal aspect came into view. Separate but equal was a legal doctrine in the constitutional law that stated that racial segregation did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. It guaranteed equal protection under the law to all citizens. For example, in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson it was ruled that racial segregated railway cars did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. In document 2D, Justice John Marshal Harlan writes “The arbitrary separation of citizens, on the basis of race, while they are on a public highway, is a badge of servitude wholly inconsistent with the civil freedom and the equality before the law established by the Constitution. It cannot be justified upon any legal grounds”. Harlan argues that this separation of train cars is not constitutional, the separate but equal idea doesn’t fully follow the Fourteenth Amendment and the white population is still seen as superior to the black population. As well as public education, which was already segregated since its establishment in most of the South after the Civil War. These laws reinstituted some of the principles of the Black