Government Failure In Reconstruction

Why Does Reconstruction Fail? Reconstruction is rebuilding something that was damaged or harmed. The Civil War was a major point where reconstruction was required because slaves were freed, houses and farms in the South were destroyed, and many factories were damaged. The North and the South had to rebuild the country with only a limited amount of money. Reconstruction fails often because there are always people with different points of view and perspectives.

On Sunday, September 15, 1963, there was an explosion that killed 4 girls and injured 22 others at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham Alabama (“Vigilance and Victory”). In spite of the deaths, this act of white supremacy was the one that united the nation to combat segregation and discrimination. The 4 KKK members who had induced such pain and sorrow in many Americans were Thomas Edwin Jr., Herman Frank Cash, Robert Edward Chambliss, and Bobby Frank Cherry. (“16th Street Baptist Church Bombing, Wikipedia”). These four men intended to slow down the progression of the Civil Rights Movement, but rather sprung it ahead into the creation of the Civil Rights Act which desegregated many public areas.

The south being the main reason why reconstruction was a failure with acts like the KKK, Black Codes, and the thought that blacks couldn’t be elected officials were the main reasons why reconstruction failed the way that it did. The KKK commonly known as the Ku Klux Klan was one of the biggest reasons for the failure of reconstruction. Acts like the killing of “John Stephens, State Senator from Caswell”(Document A) The KKK created lots of violent terrorist like

Uniquely, they ask questions, and then provide strong evidence to support their opinions on the matter or the claim. The tone of this book is mainly critical, the author introduces possible arguments to answer the questions at hand, and continues by refuting them and explaining why they are incorrect. In chapter 3, “How Is the Ku Klux Klan like a Giant Group Of Real-Estate Agents?” Levitt and Dubner mainly use the rhetorical strategy, pathos, when talking about the Ku Klux Klan because what person can disagree with someone proving how terrible a multi-state terrorist organization who’s purpose was to frighten and kill black people in the United States was? The answer is simple, no one, because most people have morals and are disgusted by what the Ku Klux Klan did.

Dr. Philips, in this source, tells about the formation of the KKK in Mississippi as a further means to keep freedmen “in their place” in regards to wanting to vote and run for

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.

Throughout the year’s historians have studied and debated what impact the KKK had on the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1968. With evidence, it is clear that the KKK had a negative outlook on the Movement as it allowed African-Americans to have social and political freedom and gave them equal rights. Due to the racial and white supremacy ideals of the time many opposed the movement causing the causal factors that developed the KKK. Since its birth in 1865 the Klan left forever Intergenerational trauma on many African American long after its disbandment in 1968. In response to these heinous crimes the government introduced a series of Acts and Legations with the hope that it would disempower or even end the KKK.

This “second” Ku Klux Klan was all about moral regulation. Dorr states that the KKK was “Concerned not only bootleggers, prostitution, and derelict husbands, the Klan also sought to put an end to new social practices taken up by middle-class white youth” (Dorr, 63). These KKK members were like moral police officers for the students and for Alabama youth in general, in 1926 and 1927 they raided couples parked on dates on the well-known lovers’ lanes in Birmingham (Dorr, 64). Alabama students feared not for the police but of being caught by member of the Klu Klux Klan.

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

The reconstruction period was a failure because African Americans, mainly males, were not treated with equality although the constitution said that the they were free and had the right to vote, be educated and had the right to liberty, life and the pursuit to happiness. Organizations, like the KKK, were created to harm freed slaves and their families. Laws were created such as the Black Codes restricting former slaves from their rights. African Americans endured a lot of violence over the years. “In Grayson, Texas, a white man and two friends murdered three former slaves because the wanted to ‘ thin the niggers out and drive them to their hole’”.

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

Jackson argues that the KKK believed that the spirit of Americanism and the spirit of Protestantism were one and the same and in order to protect America it required a defense of Protestantism against forces that would weaken or denounce the faith like millions of immigrants that were non-Protestants and would not assimilate to the KKK’s version of American culture. Samuel Campbell, who was a lecturer for the KKK argued that “there needs to be a greater education of American nationalism and Protestantism to save the American ideals of this great country against the swarm of foreign born immigrants that seek to change our style of government and force new ideals that will break down Americanism.” Campbell demonstrates the KKK’s paranoia about foreign immigrants having different ideals than American ideals, which would destroy White purity and superiority in America. Therefore, this shows that by making nationalism a white supremacist religious experience, American men and women justified any violence or terrorism against immigrants as protecting pure Protestant tenants linked Protestantism and

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.

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.

This paper will discuss the difference between the Ku Klux Klan and The Black Panther Party two extremist groups. The historical foundation of these two groups along with the comparison of their extremist activities, and the motivating factors which fueled and heighten their motivational actions. The movement of these two groups were prompted by the two different beliefs with the Ku Klux Klan motives being from racism, and the Black Panther forming for the protection of their communities from racial tension. The Ku Klux Klan was founded in Tennessee by veteran confederate soldiers lead by General Nathan Bedford in 1865 during the time of the Reconstruction Era as a result of resistance to the Republican Party’s support of the Reconstruction