How Did After Reconstruction Dbq

The Civil War was one of America’s most trying and troubling times. Following the Civil War was Reconstruction, which posed an important question that would affect the country forever, “What do we do with the South?” During Reconstruction, the Government was faced with a plethora of difficult questions to answer and a series of difficult situations, but the topic at hand was the same reason the Civil War started in the first place: African Americans. The statement “After the Civil War, the only way to truly enfranchise former slaves was by effectively disenfranchising their former masters” is true because white Southerners would constantly and consistently attempt to undermine African Americans. There were many ways that white Southerners used to belittle African Americans; the creation of Black Codes were one of these ways. Black Codes were laws created by Southern states that had the intention of dwindling and restricting the African Americans’ new found rights. These laws were passed in the Democratic dominated South where white Southerners wanted themselves separate and thought of them as inferior. African Americans had little protection from the law, besides the Thirteenth Amendment, until the North sent their military down to help the Southerners see African Americans as equal (Document C). By

This was done via segregation. Whites and African Americans had separate public facilities, such as schools. African Americans were elated having their own education system since they did not posses one prior to Reconstruction. Later on there was a court case Plessy v. Ferguson that coined the notion “separate but equal.” Even though that most African Americans were content with having their own schooling system, it was only theirs to begin with because of white Southern oppression, which could have dissipated if the rebels were