Introduction
The Reconstruction era, which followed the American Civil War, was a pivotal period in United States history. It spanned from 1865 to 1877 and aimed to rebuild the Southern states, integrate formerly enslaved African Americans into society, and address the aftermath of the war. This era witnessed significant political, social, and economic changes, as well as persistent challenges, including racial tensions and resistance to change. It left a lasting impact on the nation's path toward equality and civil rights.
Definition:
Americans everywhere agreed that the South needed to be rebuilt, but they disagreed bitterly over how to accomplish it. This period of rebuilding is called Reconstruction. This term also refers to the various plans for carrying out the rebuilding.
The Role of Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson.
Abraham was made a plan to put South in union again. He stopped the punishment of South and gave opportunity and forgive them except the leaders of confederation. The purpose of Abraham Lincoln was to bring the south. There were some new laws and Abraham Lincoln passed away and then vice president Andrew became president. Johnson was born South but he was against of the issue.
Landmark Legislation.
During the 19th and 20th centuries Congress establish landmark legislation to abolish slavery, to build America and legal protection of the slaves and their cultures, to end segregation in public and to give voting right for emancipated people.
Thirteenth Amendment.
Congress abolish slavery in 1862. Through the thirteenth amendment the slavery was illegal. So, it was illegal to have someone working for you black or white without wages, right to terminate, and monetary value. Abraham Lincoln terminated question of slavery 1865.
Fourteenth Amendment.
African American were given identity card. They were counted as citizens before they were not counted. Before, it was only counted white people while counted Africa American as slaves in the United States of America. So, they were given equal protection under the laws. Why, because, African Americans were faced many problems such as: patients, children, jobs and many other things.
Fifteenth Amendment
The fifteenth Amendment was basically strengthening the fourteenth amendment. The law prohibited the states to deny the voters a reason of color, race and other previous condition of servitude. The color was just black people which was no value and was nothing before and also race means, there was Spanish people and other Europeans came from Europe to America, so that calls color and race. All that thing the fifteenth amendment changed.
Then, they had gotten a chance to vote and have right to select somebody on their own section.
The freedmen’s Bureau.
After slavery the name that was used to refers was freedmen and bureau is business. Freedmen bureau means it was a plan African American engaging meaningful business. The president and Congress prepared a new government agency to help slave people. Then, agency distributed them a food and cloths and even provided medical services that lowered the death of African American. It also built schools and teachers such as Charlotte Forte and gave aid certain university such as Atlanta, Howard and Fisk university. Bureau assisted freed people to get a land or work with a fair salary/
The meaning of black freedom.
Names.
Land.
Reconstitution Family.
Education.
Challenges.
Black-codes:
By the spring of 1866, Southern states had passed black codes, or laws that aimed to control freed men and women. The black codes trampled the rights of African Americans. They permitted plantation owners to exploit African American workers and allowed officials to arrest and fine jobless African Americans. The black codes also banned African Americans from owning or renting farms. To freed men and women and many Northerners, the black codes brought back slavery in disguise
Most Southern whites opposed efforts to expand African Americans’ rights. Life soon became difficult for African Americans. Most white landowners refused to rent land to freedmen. Store owners refused African Americans credit, and employers would not hire them.
The KKK (KU KLUX KLAN) :
Agroup including many former Confederate veterans founded the first branch of the Ku Klux Klan as a social club in Pulaski, Tennessee, in 1865. The first two words of the organization’s name supposedly derived from the Greek word “kyklos,” meaning circle. In the summer of 1867, local branches of the Klan met in a general organizing convention and established what they called an “Invisible Empire of the South.”
From 1867 onward, Black participation in public life in the South became one of the most radical aspects of Reconstruction, as Black people won election to southern state governments and even to the U.S. Congress. For its part, the Ku 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.
Its members waged an underground campaign of intimidation and violence directed at white and
Black Republican leaders. Though Congress passed legislation designed to curb Klan terrorism,
the organization saw its primary goal–the reestablishment of white supremacy–fulfilled through Democratic victories in state legislatures across the South in the 1870s.