Gaby Striano Social Studies 807 10 October, 2017 Reconstruction The Civil War was the bloodiest war America has ever faced. The southern states were destroyed, and the Confederacy couldn’t help them. The serious damage and divided country caused a period called Reconstruction. Reconstruction was a period of eleven years after the Civil War, used to rebuild and reunite the U.S. This was the goal, however it wasn’t successful. Reconstruction wasn’t successful because African-Americans still had the same rights they had during slavery, Confederate leaders rose back to power, and the Ku Klux Klan was created. One of the reasons Reconstruction wasn’t successful was because former slaves rights barely changed. The 14th amendment states that …show more content…
When Confederate leaders rose back to power, this encouraged white southerners to become more open about their white supremacy, which created the KKK. The Ku Klux Klan mainly targeted blacks and the republicans who supported them. According to class notes on the KKK, they raided Freedman schools, invaded towns, tortured and murdered black families. African-Americans have tried to take a stand against this, but with involvement by the authorities and government make it challenging. “We find their deeds are perpetrated only upon colored men and white republicans...Our race have become the special object of hatred and persecution...Our people are driven from their homes in great numbers, having no redress only the United States court, which is in many cases unable to reach them” (Petition to the United States Congress, 25 March 1871). The government has tried to deal with the group and created the KKK act which allowed them to retaliate. However, in 1882, the act was ruled unconstitutional. Therefore, Reconstruction failed to prevent terrorism and eliminate it once it
Why does reconstruction fail? It fails for a number of reasons, ranging from people not putting in the effort needed to fix things to there being too deep of a wound for it to ever go back to normal. The wound may be stitched up, but it will leave behind a nasty scar that will never go away. Reconstruction may be able to throw things back together, but it never goes back to the way it was before.
Resistance to Reconstruction was incredibly aggressive and violent since Southerners were extremely appalled by the radical social transformations that were resulting from Reconstruction, so those Southerners terrorized and killed the Republicans and the black people responsible for the changes. Black people were supposedly guaranteed equality before the law by the 14th amendment, however, their rights were not always upheld. Southerners would kill black people over minor actions, like not yielding to whites on sidewalks or attempting to buy land. A terrorist organization, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), formed in 1866 to punish people who “defied the norms of white supremacy”. Ordinary black people were killed by the KKK alongside black and white
The primary goal for the reconstruction following the war was to bring the southern states back into the union in a semi-compromising way that would settle the issues that had once fueled the Civil War. The once hopeful and good intentions soon proved to fall short of expectations. With the push for equality among African Americans and the passing of the amendments, came retaliation from southerns and other individuals who still held racist views. Things such as the black codes were passed in the southern states with the intentions of limiting freedoms for African Americans, and forcing them to take jobs of lower quality and pay. Along with this persecution, further segregation became common in retaliation to acts of the north.
About 650,000 soldiers died during the Civil War; either by combat, accidents, diseases or starvation. The Civil War was one of the bloodiest wars America has faced. The Union beat the Confederates over slavery. The United States no longer has slavery and reconstruction follows the war. Reconstruction was different for everyone in the North and the South.
The KKK began to grow and become a large problem for innocent people. In 1833 the United States passed a bill called the Force Bill (Carson 1). This made the klan disappear for awhile but did not stop them. Still to this day people are struggling with the Ku Klux
You can see how reconstruction was supposed to help the newly freed slaves while the definition of reconstruction says that it was, “ensuring the rights and protection of the newly freed African Americans,” (Terms to know, On reconstruction.) This shows how some of the intentions of reconstruction were supposed to help bring newly freed slaves safely into the society. The newly freed slaves would have been fond of the idea of being brought safely into the society. You can see this again when it says, “Presidential reconstruction began in 1865 with the ratification() passing of the thirteenth amendment freeing slaves, and continued lincoln’s signature of the bill that created the Freedmen's Bureau. The Bureau was to feed both black and whites in the south, establish schools to teach former slaves to read and write, help them find paying jobs, and shield them from discrimination,” (Stage One: Presidential reconstruction 1865 - 1866.)
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.
Who killed Reconstruction: The North or South? Following the civil war, the south killed the reconstruction of the United States. (Reconstruction was putting the country back together after the Civil War) There are many reasons why, the south slowed down the reconstruction of the United States, the main reason was freedmen were not seen as equals to the white.
The Klan was involved in many violent activities on those who challenged white supremacy”(Ku). These violent activities included beatings, shootings, lynchings and rapes. They tried to prevent certain groups of
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
Reconstruction caused prejudice and inequality. To elaborate, the creation of the Ku Klux Klan and the Black Codes were both in the time period of reconstruction, which caused chaos and violence throughout the Union. One of the goals of reconstruction was to repair the economy in the South, because it depended on slavery, which was now illegal, due to the thirteenth amendment. The South’s economic system now depended on Sharecropping, which caused former slaves to be in constant debt and was unjust to the black society. The reconstruction time period, was a time of dispute between the Union.
The thirteenth amendment stated that all former slaves were granted freedom. The reconstruction period, “did create the essential constitutional foundation for further advances in the quest for equality”. It laid the building blocks for the future building for civil rights not just for blacks but women and other minorities. Former slaves, “ found comfort in their family and in the churches they established”. Blacks took community in each other and bonded over the mutual idea of freedom .
As stated in the introduction, the most well-known hate crimes have been against people of the African-American community. The most successful terrorist group that have committed hate crimes against African- Americans in the United States has been the Ku Klux Klan. This group was created in 1865 in Pulaski, Tennessee and is still have many factions throughout the United States. The Southern Poverty Law Center estimated that the Ku Klux Klan has between 5,000 and 8,000 members nationwide.1 Their power has been on its ability to inspire racist ideology.
It all depends how you look at it. Laws that were set up weren’t always followed correctly, but laws were still being set up to protect African Americans rights. It must have been a success because now today, they are known as citizens and have the right to vote. But then again, the rise of the Klu Klux Klan and other white supremacy groups, in combination with the Black Codes, began to intimidate freed slaves and push back their civil liberties. For me, the Reconstruction was a
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.