Reconstruction Period Essay

Reconstruction Period During this period of time, legal, political, and cultural changes to prohibit discrimination resulted in many events known as the Civil Rights Movement. Multiple events ended segregation and the conflict for equality. All these events were significant and each event led to another, but I personally believe the Fifthteenth Amendment, Freedmen’s Bureau, and the black codes were the three most important events during the Civil War. New Southern State legislatures passed a series of laws in 1865 known as the black codes. These codes severely limited African Americans rights in the South. These codes varied from state to state but they intended to keep African Americans

The Freedmen’s Bureau freed slaves, land, jobs, fair treatment, and education. Before it was established, the war and the collapse of the economy left hundreds of thousands unemployed, homeless, and hungry. African Americans risked everything they had to stay alive during this overwhelming war. Africans started following the marching Sherman through Georgia plus South Carolina, seeking for food and shelter. To help these terrified freed people, Sherman reserved all abandoned plantations land within 30 miles of the coast from Charleston, South Carolina, to Jacksonville, Florida, for use for the freed people. Over these 3 months, Union troops settled more than 40,000 African Americans on half a million acres of land in South Carolina and Georgia. This Refugee crisis made Congress establish the Freedmen’s Bureau. This bureau was created to feed and clothe refugees in the South using army surplus supplies. It helped prevent mass starvation in the South. In September 1865, the bureau issued nearly 30,000 rations a day for the next months. It helped enslaved people find jobs to work on plantations, it negotiated labor contract with planters, and established special courts between the workers and planters. The Freedmen’s Bureau made a lasting and important contribution in the field of education. It also provided schools, paid teachers, and helped establish colleges for training African American