By the late 1870s Reconstruction was coming to an end. In the name of healing the wounds between North and South, most white politicians abandoned the cause of protecting African Americans.
In the former Confederacy and neighboring states, local governments constructed a legal system aimed at re-establishing a society based on white supremacy. African American men were largely barred from voting. Legislation known as Jim Crow laws separated people of color from whites in schools, housing, jobs, and public gathering
The Jim Crow laws were established to create segregation between racial groups in the south. They segregated African Americans from other racial groups in schools, restaurants, and public transportation, and backtracked towards slavery. The results of the Jim Crow Laws would be in effect of years to
About a hundred years after the Civil War, almost all American lived under the Jim Crow laws. The Jim Crow Laws actually legalized segregation. These racially enforced rules dominated almost every aspect of life, not to mention directed the punishments for any infraction. The key reason for the Jim Crow Laws was to keep African Americans as close to their former status as slaves as was possible. The following paper will show you the trials and tribulations of African Americans from the beginning through to the 1940’s where segregation was at its peak.
The north grew weary of the ‘Negro Question’ and ‘sick of carpet-bag’ the started to go against all of these policies (Doc C). In the 1870s they were high-level scandals and Ulysses S Grant presidency cause by corrupt officials appointed by him. Grant was a trusted president but how ever his officials were not. They caused problems such as the tammany ring,whiskey ring, and the Belknap affair were all scandals. All of the corrupt government in the north caused people to lose their faith and focus in reconstruction. (Doc C) The fall of 1873 the Boston Evening Transcript wrote a letter arguing that the blacks were unfitted people for the proper exercise of political duties (Doc D). The North were slowly turning into the south by showing hatred of blacks. They thought that since they were uneducated it would take the a very long time to learn how to read or write. They painted them as aggressive demanding people. (Doc D Cartoon). They started to go against reconstruction and focus more on political things that the thought of reconstruction faded
The Reconstruction Era lasted up to 1877 from the time just after the Civil War. The Reconstruction failed to bring about social and economic equality to the former slaves due to the southern whites’ resentful and bitter outlook on the matter, the Ku Klux Klan, and the Jim Crow laws.
The Jim Crow laws perpetuated segregation. This set of rules to show the dominance of the white race were absolutely appalling. They were mainly operated in the southern portion of the United States, but not exclusively. The Jim Crow laws “were in place from the late 1870’s until the civil rights movement began in the 1950’s” (“Jim Crow Laws”). Blacks and whites could not use the same drinking fountains, restrooms, or attend the same restaurants, churches, and schools. It was considered rape or an unwanted advance for a black man to offer his hand to a white woman. Another law was that african-american couples could not show affection towards each other in a public area because it “offended whites” (Pilgrim) along with countless more. There
Jim Crow laws were state and local laws that reinforced racial segregation in the South between the end of Reconstruction in 1877 and the beginning of the civil rights movement in the 1950’s (Urofsky). The laws mandated segregation of schools, drinking fountains, restrooms, buses, and restaurants. In legal theory, blacks received “separate but equal” treatment under the law--in actuality, public facilities were nearly always inferior to those for whites, when they existed at all. In addition, blacks were systematically denied the right to vote in most of the rural South through the selective application of literacy tests and other racially motivated criteria (PBS). Despite Jim Crow laws being abolished in 1964 when President Lyndon Johnson
Geoffrey Chaucer once said, “all good things must come to an end”. This quote perfectly describes the period of Reconstruction in the United States. During 1876, America gained a lot of opportunities and technology, such as the recently developed railroads. They still had to recover from the Civil War, so they started Reconstruction Policies to reconnect the southern and northern states into one union. The 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments were passed to help African Americans gain their rights, but then the new election came up. It was very controversial and to avoid a crisis, the government made Rutherford B.Hayes president if he removed federal soldiers from the South. This officially ended Reconstruction. Many people still wonder… Did the North or the South kill Reconstruction? The South is to blame for the termination of Reconstruction for three
Reconstruction has been brutally murdered! For a little over a decade after the Civil War, the victorious North launched a campaign of social, economic, and political recovery in the former Confederacy and to readmit the land in the former Confederacy back into the United States as states. Reconstruction yielded many benefits for African Americans. The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments freed African Americans, made them citizens, and gave them the right to vote respectively. The Freedmen’s Bureau also provided African Americans and poor whites with education, jobs, and supplies. Despite this, Reconstruction was cut short in 1877. The North killed Reconstruction because of racism, negligence, and distractions.
With the era of American Reconstruction in America during the mid to late 1800’s came a sense of opportunity and hope for its people. America was on the move as nation, railroads being built faster than ever and the freedmen looking to find their niche in society. Although in the beginning the government provided support for these new citizens, efforts toward reconstruction faded as the years passed. Those efforts faded to a point where they were all but nonexistent, and with the unwritten Compromise of 1877, what feeble efforts that were left of reconstruction were now all but dead. Politically, reconstruction failed to provide equality by pulling Federal troops from the South, allowing former Confederate officials and slave owners
Due to the gradual elimination of African-American rights and the withdrawal of Federal troops from the South to enforce such rights, the end of Reconstruction surfaced in 1877. In the eyes of blacks, Reconstruction was a point in history where they could see their civil rights expanding before their very own eyes. On the contrary, whites were deeply disturbed at the way their once “white supremacy” government was dwindling in the rear-view mirror behind them. This fourteen year period known as Reconstruction houses the memories of temporary freedom, scandal, backdoor deals, and the unresolved social, political, and economical issues of our country.
“...the slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again toward slavery”(Dubois). The Reconstruction wasn’t just a time of leaving slavery behind us, it was a time of progression and development. In 1869, four years after the Civil War, the first ever college football game ensued, and in 1870 Hiram Revels was the first African American senator. Then, in 1877, the first ever easter egg hunt occurred. Moving past all the fun of the Reconstruction, is the death of it. The Reconstruction died due to the efforts, or lack thereof on the North. A financial crisis, racism, and a lack of effort brought the Reconstruction to a halting stop.
“The segregation and disenfranchisement laws known as “Jim Crow” represented a formal, codified system of racial apartheid that dominated the American South for three quarters of a century beginning in the
After the Civil War, most Southern and Border States deprived the basic rights of African Americans. Jim Crow was a fictitious character created by a white entertainer to ridicule African Americans. The laws were made in an attempt to keep African Americans away from whites after slavery ended (“Examples of Jim Crow”). The Jim Crow laws affected education, health care, and social events. “From Delaware to California, and from North Dakota to Texas, many states (and cities, too) could impose legal punishments on people for consorting with members of another race” (“Jim Crow Laws”). These punishments could be brutal or sometimes fatal.
Jim Crow was the name of the racial caste system which operated primarily, but not exclusively in southern and border states, between 1877 and the mid-1960s. Jim Crow was more than a series of rigid anti-black laws, it was a way of life. Under Jim Crow, African Americans were relegated to the status of second-class citizens. Some of the laws excluded blacks from public transport and facilities, juries, jobs, and neighborhoods, voting, holding public office, and school. Although the passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution had granted blacks the same legal protections as whites. After 1877, and the election of Republican Rutherford B. Hayes, southern and border states began restricting the liberties of blacks.
One of the biggest ways the reconstruction efforts failed was with giving equal rights to the black community. Although the slaves were freed it was very conditional freedom. The creation of Black codes made it seem like they were free. These codes made it possible for black families to remain intact. It also gave blacks the right to sue in court, and own property. This seems like progressive thinking at the time. The big problem with these codes is what they denied blacks. Blacks could not testify against whites. They could not own guns, or travel without permits. Although slavery had ended blacks were still being controlled. Without slaves to work in the fields the plantation owners needed workers. A lot of them would rent out their land to newly freed blacks. In exchange these poor blacks would have to give up 2/3 of their crop.3 The rest would be used to pay off their debts. This would