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The Freedmen's Bureau

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Recommended: Chapter 18 the reconstruction era

In addition to improved infrastructure, one positive component of Reconstruction was the advances of black institutions. The Freedmen’s Bureau was created in 1865 as a social experiment in social policy as a primitive welfare system. Its task was to provide immediate relief, such as food, shelter, and medical care as well as long-term relief. It was somewhat corrupt but it resulted in the creation of 4,000 African American schools and universities and a segregated public school system in every southern state. 200,000 blacks were taught how to read, however, by the end of reconstruction 80% of African Americans were still illiterate. Attempts by whites to improve the fate of blacks were limited but the church underwent major progressions during …show more content…

The churches rallied voters for Republicans, provided relief, funded schools, and supported Republican policies. Although they advances of black institutions and education were marginal, these developments were the primary catalyst of civil rights movements of the future. On the other hand, the freedmen’s bureau failed at advancing economic independence of blacks because they didn’t establish a free wage-labor system. In 1862, Congress enacted the unsuccessful Southern Homestead Act of 1866. The land included in this act was of very poor quality because of its location or it had previously been robbed of nutrients by the economically taxing cash crop plantation system. Furthermore, Thaddeus Steven’s Land Reform bill, which included confiscating ex-slave owners’ land and providing freedmen families with 40 acres and a mule, on the grounds that it infringed upon property rights. The same argument used to defend a person’s right to own slaves was used again to stop the representatives from pushing this bill forward. Radical Republicans demonstrated how they valued their own well-being over that of blacks because property rights were too sacred to the …show more content…

By 1866, the Klu Klux Klan evolved into a domestic terrorist organization that successfully practiced voter intimidation through violence and the murder of Republicans. In the election of 1868 alone, 2,000 murders were committed which allowed Democrats to win decisive victories in Georgia and Louisiana. While the Enforcement and KKK Acts were adopted in 1870 and 1871, Republican reluctance to intervene allowed the organization to accomplish its goals of forcing blacks not to exercise their 15th amendment rights. In 1870, black men were guaranteed the right to vote but whites wanted to see an end to an illegitimate “negro supremacy” so they did everything in their power to challenge black enfranchisement. Vigilante Groups, who took the law into their own hands, however, were harder to clamp down on because they were unorganized. The White League and White Brotherhood carried on the mission of the KKK and united members of all classes of Southern society to fight against a supposed Republican system of “reverse racism” that favored blacks over whites. These groups eventually became a militant wing of the Democratic Party and intended to redeem the south by forbidding the black majority from

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The Klu-Klux-Klan was a white supremacist group that opposed “Reconstruction” and equal rights for freed slaves (Hook Exercise). They, to my standards, really would do whatever it takes to stop Reconstruction, even if it meant killing innocent people for that. John W. Stephens, a former senator from Caswell, was brutally murdered by none other than the Klu-Klux-Klan in a Grand Jury room (Doc. A Par.1). John W. Stephens was stabbed five to six times then even hanged on a hook in the same jury room.

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Republican politicians, coupled with the assistance from Northern missionaries, used government as a vehicle to push for social reform—most notably through the creation of the Freedmen’s Bureau in 1865. “Most northern missionaries went south with the preconceived idea that the slave regime was so brutal and dehumanizing that blacks were little more than uncivilized victims who needed to be taught the values and rules of civil society.” Newly-emancipated African-Americans argued that “self-determination in the educational sphere” prompted greater autonomy and agency. Anderson’s argument about African-American self-determination challenges the dominate narrative that federal largesse from the Freedmen’s Bureau and white Northerners established universal education in the South.

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As a result of this, racist organizations were founded to wreaked havoc on former slaves. Secret societies in the southern united states, such as the Ku Klux Klan and the Knights of the White Camellia used violence against the blacks. Their goal was often to keep blacks out of politics. Our textbook states, “In other states, where blacks were a majority or where the populations of the two races were almost equal, whites used outright intimidation and violence to undermine the Reconstruction regimes” (Brinkley 368). The people involved in such organizations were using violence to take away the fifteenth amendment right from the former slaves.

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The KKK was a white supremacist group that utilized intimidation and violence to keep white control over the political and economic structures of the state. Despite being outlawed in the early 1870s, the Klan continued to operate in North Carolina and had a crucial part in the establishment of the Democratic Party in the state in the late nineteenth century. During this period, North Carolina was also home to a number of other white supremacist organizations, such as the Red Shirts and the White Brotherhood, in addition to the Ku Klux Klan. For the sake of maintaining their hold on political power, these organizations engaged in acts of violence and

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The recently freed African Americans plead to receive citizenship and equal rights, they expected to be treated as any other human being. After many years of slavery, the African Americans were finally freed from slavery by president Lincoln. Many of them were granted freedom for serving loyally in the Union army, along with certain rights, such as the right to buy land. The freed slaves were then allowed to purchase land, and received help from the government in the form of establishments such as Freedman’s Bureau and Freedmen’s Aid Society. The former slaves were now allowed to attend certain churches, schools, and were also allowed to socialize in public, although only in certain places.

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The Ku Klux Klan first emerged in Pulaski, Tennessee following the Civil War. As we know today, the mere mention of the Klan triggers fear as the KKK is known for its various tactics of violence that came in the form if lynchings, murders, and mutilations. Following their emergence, the KKK were quickly symbolized and portrayed as the protectors of the South, following the defeat of the Southern states in the Civil War and the beginning of the period of Reconstruction by the federal government (Gurr, 1989, p. 132). During the 1920s, the KKK achieved its greatest political success and growth outside of the South. During this period, the membership of the Klan heavily expanded to the states of Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Oklahoma, Colorado, and Oregon, to which the KKK obtained two to two and one-half million members at its apex.

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After the Civil War, the United States was faced with numerous challenges. The Union had won and had to resolve several issues including handling the country’s debt, how to punish Confederate traitors and slavery. Slavery was one of the leading causes of the war and once it was a abolished the government had to work out a plan to help former slaves and freedmen. The solution was conducted by Radical Republicans; it was called The Southern Homestead Act of 1866 which allowed former slaves and freedmen to purchase land in the South for a low price. Although the Southern Homestead Act (1866) was meant to help blacks in Florida, it failed to do so due to discrimination on the basis of race, lack of government support and the land that was bought was of poor quality.

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The black church was the biggest rise for southern black community and African American education. This lead to the organization of black communities for Civil Rights. The rise of black churches consisted of the earliest churches, the role of black churches in educating African Americans in the south after the Civil War, and the role that black churches played in organizing the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. During decades of slavery in the United States, slave groups were a major concern from slave owners. Many members of the white society thought that black religious meetings were

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The Klu Klux Klan was very significant and important for many reasons. The organizations primary goal of the Klan was to destroy the Republican Party as revenge for the abolition of slavery and for having a hand in the federal occupation and restructuring of the South. This was achieved by harassing and, if necessary, murdering registered Republican voters. Political murders by the Klan numbered in the thousands, many of the victims being black. Klan members often murdered black political leaders, heads of black religious institutions and any other black individual who had ties to a political organization.

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Although the thirteenth amendment abolished slavery, white supremacy was maintained through black codes, convict leasing, and sharecropping. These policies kept African Americans at a disadvantage, particularly the exploitative practice of sharecropping. Although formerly enslaved people were granted access to small plots of land, they were required to share their profits with the landowners, leaving them with a meager income. Most formerly enslaved people lacked a family following emancipation due to the separation of enslaved families, making them defenseless against the discriminatory practices of white landowners. The Christian Recorder shows how displaced African American families were and how the necessity for money forced individuals into sharecropping positions.

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Reconstruction a Failure or Success? Throughout the years, America has gone through many different political changes. Many presidents selected with different plans for our future. Sadly, many of those objectives have failed or came to an end.

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The Bureau could not provide African Americans with land, but it did contribute to education. Formerly enslaved African Americans were educated with the help of Northern charities. This was a positive outcome during

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Frederickson argues African Americans simply did not have the time or preparation to oppose racist forces. Using paramilitary forces, southern redeemers easily made threats to reconstruction forces as seen through the emergence of the violent Ku Klux Klan during the election of 1866. The opportunity for African Americans to gain a stance in society was short lived by the racist efforts of democrats in the south and impartial ideals from

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Former slaves who “tried to vote or participate in politics [were] likely to be singled out for “punishment”” by a terrorist organization named as the Ku Klux Klan, until the Congress passed the Force Bill in 1871 that gave the federal authorities the right to arrest and pursue active members of the KKK. But, the bill appeared to be only figurative as not really much of the Klan’s members were prosecuted (Hazen

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During the late 1800s, because the South had been decimated by the end of the Civil War, .the Reconstruction Period was initiated to aid the South’s recovery. Although the Civil War did abolish slavery and unify the North and the South, the war not resolve racial prejudice, the South’s damage, and the African Americans’ economic instability. The Reconstruction Period was initiated in order to prevent economic instability and the structural ruin, because since slavery was abolished, and the South was completely dependent on slaves, therefore slaves could not work for the South to maintain the economy, and slaves also could not fix up the damages done to the structures done to the South during the war. By starting the Freedmen’s Bureau and passing

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