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What Changes Did African Americans Face During Reconstruction Essay

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William Edward Burghardt Du Bois once said, “the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line.” He refers “color” as race and how race is a social category used to assign human worth and social status using whites as the superior race and the minorities as the inferior. That’s what America is facing during Reconstruction. When the Reconstruction Era transitioned into the New South Era, the lives of Freedmen changed socially, economically, and politically for the worse. Although southern whites were still unpleasant to African Americans during Reconstruction, it got more severe socially in the New South Era. White southerners intended to restrict the rights of citizenship to Freedmen as much as possible to replace slavery …show more content…

Former slaves had no place to live or work, so they started working for their former masters. They had a system of working called sharecropping. Under this system, Freedmen rented a plot of land and paid the plantation owner a certain percentage of the crop which depended on how much the renter owed in supplies (www.njstatelib.org). Sharecropping became really popular in the South, and African Americans were the labor source for it (Doc D). At first, Sharecropping seemed like a good deal for the African Americans, but sharecropping became a system where croppers were greatly exploited. Planters charged outrageously high prices and interest rates for the supplies purchased by sharecroppers. This made it to where the croppers legally were bound to keep working for the planters to try to pay off the debt. But, each year, they would get more and more in debt, making an economic nightmare in the …show more content…

During the beginning of Reconstruction, Congress passed the 15th Amendment which stated that the right to vote will not be denied to anyone no matter their race, color, or previous servitude. It also states that the Congress has the right to enforce this amendment if it is not being enforced by the state governments (Doc E). That Amendment made it possible for blacks to vote for the first time ever in American history (Doc A). Since African Americans were able to vote, they voted to be represented by fellow Freedmen in the Senate and Congress (Doc B). Then, a group called the Klu Klux Klan, “dedicated itself to an underground campaign of violence against Republican leaders and voters (both black and white) in an effort to reverse the policies of Radical Reconstruction and restore white supremacy in the South” (www.history.com). The Klan would use violence as their tactic to scare away Freedmen from voting, and it worked. America went from where Freedmen could vote and be protected, to risking their lives to vote or speak out against the Klan. The Klan ended all progress of equality for Freedmen, and progress wouldn’t start up again till many years

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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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Resistance to Reconstruction was incredibly aggressive and violent since Southerners were extremely appalled by the radical social transformations that were resulting from Reconstruction, so those Southerners terrorized and killed the Republicans and the black people responsible for the changes. Black people were supposedly guaranteed equality before the law by the 14th amendment, however, their rights were not always upheld. Southerners would kill black people over minor actions, like not yielding to whites on sidewalks or attempting to buy land. A terrorist organization, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), formed in 1866 to punish people who “defied the norms of white supremacy”. Ordinary black people were killed by the KKK alongside black and white

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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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Black sharecroppers were often forced to give the majority of their crops to the landowner, and sometimes they went into debt or were forced into poverty. High interest rates and unpredictable harvests kept many sharecropping families greatly indebted. They would remain tied to the land and it was unlikely that they would leave for other opportunities. Laws favoring landowners made it difficult or sometimes illegal for sharecroppers to sell their crops to others besides their landlord. The use of sharecropping declined after 1940, due to a combination of factors.

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How the former slaves would reenter society was a debatable topic, and compromising between an ultra conservative and ultra liberal plan was not an option. The result was a mediocre, confused community. While the Radicals granted rights (such as “universal suffrage”) to the black citizens of the South, Johnson reassured white supremacy (with documents such as the “Black Codes”). The South reacted with racial violence and the formation of the Ku Klux Klan, a racist terrorist organization. The differences of the plans did not fit well together, so neither fully

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