Pros And Cons Of The Reconstruction Era

Numerous Confederate soldiers joined the KKK; therefore, they soon dressed as the Ghost of Confederate Soldiers. At first, they would patrol the roads and crash parties. They eventually realized that the freed black people were terrified of them and used this to control their behavior. They started seeing themselves as a law enforcers rather than law breakers. Their law enforcement was traveling at night and randomly beating people who didn't like the klan.

King, Letter from a Birmingham Jail 1. What, according to King, is the purpose of direct action, and why does the SCLC engage in direct action rather than in negotiation? Through negotiation is helpful and a strong method to use when wanting to revolt and turn against an unfair system, direct action is way stronger. Direct action, as described and explained by King, is important because it creates an uncomfortable environment for people versus the usual safe and calm environment.

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.

In Black Studies lecture we learned about the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments; which did the following: the 13th abolished slavery, the 14th granted full citizenship to black people and the protection from state interference, and the 15th granted the right to vote to black people. However, the misuse of these amendments have been a constant hindrance to a true democratic system. In lecture, the misuse of the 14th amendment was the lack of enforcement. After the Civil War, the South was heated due to the Confederate loss, and through the Klu Klux Klan and Black Codes, the citizenship of black people, as granted by the 14th amendment, was completely ignored and, ostensibly, nonexistent. The 15th amendment meant basically nothing, due to the implementation of poll taxes and the perpetual disenfranchisement of black people.

Reconstruction brought healing to the nation and the newly freed slaves through Congressional Reconstruction; however, it also brought destruction to them as well through Presidential Reconstruction. Reconstruction dealt with the issues of slavery and a divided Union. After the North’s victory of the Civil War, the United States issued a “reconstruction” to help amalgamate the country back to one nation, like it was before. While reconstruction was all encompassing and had many sections to it; the ex- slaves were the most influenced and impacted by it.

Founded in 1866, the (KKK) extended into virtually each southern state by 1870 and have become a vehicle for white southern resistance to the Republican Party’s Reconstruction-era policies aimed toward establishing political and economic equality for blacks. Its members waged associate underground campaign of intimidation and violence directed at white and black Republican leaders. Congress passed legislation designed to curb KKK, the organization saw its primary goal “the reestablishment of white supremacy” fulfilled through Democratic victories in state legislatures across the South within the decennary. Once an amount of decline, white Protestant nativist teams revived the KKK within the early twentieth century, burning crosses and staging

The Fifteenth Amendment, which was ratified February 3, 1870, states that the “right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” By dodging around the Amendment, people still found ways to disclude African Americans from voting. According to Document L, “Denying black men the right to vote through legal maneuvering and violence was a first step in taking away their civil rights. Beginning in 1890s, southern states enacted literacy tests... The laws proved very effective.

The Voting Rights Act was passed into law on August 6, 1965. The law prohibited the use of poll taxes and literacy tests that prevented Southern Blacks from voting. It also gave the federal government authority to supervise how poll taxes are conducted within places with disfranchised African Americans. After the Civil War, regardless of the 15th amendment, which banned the states from denying the right to vote of male citizens based on their race or previous condition of servitude before the war, discrimination was still around, prevented African Americans from voting. Many voting rights activists were also being mistreated violently.

After the fifteenth Amendment was passed, a number of states adopted grandfather clause which allowed only adult males to vote whose grandfather is eligible to vote. African American women also struggled from exercising the franchise to voting. Because of poll tax, less wealthy citizens were discouraged from registering.

From 1868 through the early 1870s the Ku Klux Klan functioned as a loosely organized group of political and social terrorists. The Klan’s goals included the political defeat of the Republican Party and the maintenance of absolute white supremacy in response to newly gained civil and political rights by Southern blacks after the Civil War. At first it was formed as a social club for Confederate soldiers after the war, but it soon progressed to be one of the biggest terror groups in American history. Most Klan action was designed to intimidate black voters and white

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

The American civil war led to the reunion of the South and the North. But, its consequences led the Republicans to take the lead of reconstructing what the war had destroyed especially in the South because it contained larger numbers of newly freed slaves. Just after the civil war, America entered into what was called as the reconstruction era. Reconstruction refers to when “the federal government established the terms on which rebellious Southern states would be integrated back into the Union” (Watts 246). As a further matter, it also meant “the process of helping the 4 million freed slaves after the civil war [to] make the transition to freedom” (DeFord and Schwarz 96).

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’”.

The period between the end of the Civil War and the Great Depression had many notable achievements such as western expansion and the Reconstruction Era. However it was also a time period in which many minority groups were fairly disappointed in the American government. The Reconstruction Amendments had many holes not making it effective enough, and with more expansion to the West came more extreme racism towards Native Americans. It is clear that there were attempts to change America for all the people’s freedom, but there are still many flaws those changes possess. Because of that, I find myself in the middle of the debate about who benefited most from this time period.

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.