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The Goals of Reconstruction
President Lincoln stated in his Second Inaugural that the U.S., now whole again, should work “to bind up the nation’s wounds”—but with his assassination, and the voice of America’s better angels now gone, Reconstruction got off to a rockier start than the deceased president would have hoped to have seen. Reconstruction was supposed to be a new dawn of brotherhood; the South was to be forgiven, and blacks were supposed to be equal. What had been razed to the ground during Sherman’s March to the Sea was now to be rebuilt so that order could be re-established. Frederick Douglass, writing in The Atlantic in 1866, stated that enfranchisement of the free black would only come if the federal government passed laws to protect the newly freed former slaves and brought the law of the North into the South. What happened, however, was something else entirely. The spirit of the south continued on: the Ku Klux Klan arose from the ashes of Sherman’s March. Jim Crow laws reigned where Douglass had hoped to see Yankee law prevail. Reconstruction floundered and racism persisted. This paper will show how the goals of Reconstruction regarding African-Americans were not achieved by 1900 because of a failure of the federal government to oversee effectively the Era of Reconstruction and to eradicate the racist doctrines and organizations of the South.
President Johnson essentially gave the South a free hand in determining how the Reconstruction Lincoln had envisioned would be effected: this set the tenor for the times. Free blacks were not provided for: Johnson returned most of the land of the South to its original owners. The Southern aristocracy returned to power, ensuring that free blacks would not be enfranchised. Johnson stated in his 1865 pardon: “I hereby grant and assure to all persons of color who have, directly or by implication, participated...…though they had been dropped in their own same land as yesterday but now without any titles, any lodgings or any place to call home. Thus, the blacks took flight in what became known as the Great Migration, as whole families of freed blacks flocked north to the cities to find work and shelter. African Americans found themselves unwanted everywhere they went.
In conclusion, Reconstruction failed to achieve its goals because nothing was done to reduce the animosity that the old aristocracy felt towards the new radical Republicans who supported the federal government’s program. The Old South was still bitter about the war—and that “south will rise again” feeling was evident in the rise of the KKK, which emerged from the Southern resentment towards the Union, which had taken away the slaves and overturned the order. The Supreme Court did nothing to prevent Jim Crow from taking over as its “separate but equal” ruling showed what the…
Black Reconstruction in America by W.E.B. Du Bois The Perpetuation of the "Color Caste" and Socio-economic Stratification in "Black Reconstruction in America" by W.E.B. Du Bois William E.B. Du Bois, American writer and historian, is known for his active participation in promoting Black Power movements in American society during the early 20th century, a period wherein society is dominated and controlled by the white American race. During this period also, there is
Once they arrived, they were brought to a slave market and usually auctioned off to the highest bidder just as cattle and horses were auctioned off. The slaves then spent their lives of servitude helping white farm and plantation owners in their agricultural operations. The slaves weren't typically compensated and lived in deplorable conditions. Slavery helped many white land owners become rich, and the southern colonies, which turned into
(Freeman, 2007). None of the programs was responsible, and freed slaves, especially in rural areas, were left with no property and few prospects following emancipation. Unfortunately, slaves who did not choose to leave their plantations helped establish the precedence of sharecropping, which led to the virtual re-enslavement of a new generation of African-Americans after Reconstruction. Under the practice of sharecropping, a farmer works on someone else's land, and promises to
" (Zeleza, 2003, p. 1) in the U.S. "there are...at least four waves of African diasporas: first the historical communities of African-Americans, themselves formed out of complex internal and external migrations over several hundred years; second, migrant communities from other diasporic locations, such as the Caribbean that have maintained or invoke, when necessary or convenient, national identities such as Jamaicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans....; third, the recent immigrants from the indigenous
Reconstruction and Black America According to Foner In spite of the fact that African-Americans were largely at the center of the ideals in conflict during the Civil War, history would largely overlook their experiences in the aftermath of this sustained and bloody conflict. The era known as Reconstruction would be far more frequently described according to White experiences in the succeeding years. Eric Foner's 2002 text Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877,
Reconstruction After Civil War The liberation declaration in 1863 freed African-Americans in rebel states, and after the Civil War, the Thirteenth Amendment liberated all U.S. slaves wherever they were. As a result, the mass of Southern blacks now faced the complicatedness which Northern blacks had confronted that of a free people bounded by many hostile whites. One freedman, Houston Hartsfield Holloway, wrote, "For we colored people did not know how to