Social Failures Of The Reconstruction Era

Eric Foner states that “some 2,000 African-Americans occupied public offices during Reconstruction represented a fundamental shift of power in the South and a radical departure in American government”(575).The offices and positions they held were in every level of government, including, the House of Representatives, Senators, a Governor, and many held positions in local offices. The change from African American being treated as a possession of white men to being in control of some part of the government was a major change in the United States

Separate parks and schools were created for children, blacks could not use the same restrooms as whites, and restaurants would not allow any other race other than white. The Jim Crow Laws were used as social control, and if blacks violated these laws they risked their homes, jobs, and even their life. (Pilgrim, David). The Jim Crow Laws were around until the mid-1960s when the Supreme Court ruled them

Jim Crow laws Jim Crow law is how white people and colored people didn’t get along; there was lot unfairness between them such as segregation. Segregation is enforcing separation of different racial groups in a country, community, or establishment. Like, in Alabama hospitals private or public, there can’t be any female nurses in the same room as a black man. For the buses, they had separate waiting rooms and separate ticket windows for the white and colored people. With restaurants whites and colored couldn’t be served in the same room unless they had a solid wall built from the roof down to separate them.

Reconstruction was a failure because even though the black community became free they were once again restricted by laws, prejudice, unequal standards. From 1865 to 1866, under President Andrew Johnson, southern state legislatures passed a collection of restrictive laws to legally control former black slaves and other African Americans. These laws were know as Black Codes. blacks did gain a voice in the government during 1867. But, the development and growth of the Ku Klux Klan, secret society dedicated to the supremacy of white people, throughout the southern states reverted any notion of Blacks equality.

From 1877 to the mid 1960s the Southern United States enforced a series of rigid anti-black laws known as the Jim Crow Laws. In theory these laws were to create a “separate but equal” treatment, but in reality the Jim Crow Laws only sentenced people of color to inferior treatment and facilities. Under these laws, public organizations such as schools, hotels, restaurants, and the United States Military were segregated. Blacks were even expected to conduct themselves in accordance with the Jim Crow Etiquette.

The laws set every black person down, pushing white supremacy up to its peak. White people wanted black people to feel lower, even though they had just come from

The Jim Crow laws and systemic racism perpetuated by society limited opportunities for African Americans and fostered a segregated society. Segregation was enforced through various means, including separate schools, public facilities, and housing. These policies perpetuated stereotypes and reinforced racial divisions.

“Jim Crow rules limited almost every aspect of African Americans’ lives: where they could live, study, work, play, and worship; how they could travel; and even where they could be jailed or buried” (Rasmussen 3). Segregation is the forced separation of humans from one another; the Jim Crow laws made segregation legal in the states that they were enacted in. In March of 1881, Tennessee passed the first Jim Crow law, it segregated railroad

Those who remained in power in the south were determined to keep African Americans at a low social rank through systems such as sharecropping, which kept workers in perpetual debt, sometimes even under their previous masters. Blacks who had moved to the north in search of better conditions found that it was no better. There were almost no jobs available due to factories hiring immigrants for disgracefully low wages. On top of that, “separate but equal” was in its prime, after the court case Plessy v. Ferguson. This case gave those in power the right to separate people of color from all aspects of their life from establishments to schools to even drinking fountains.

Discriminatory hiring practices often grouped Black Americans in less skilled occupations, reinforcing the concept of separate but equal treatment. They also restricted access to certain educational opportunities, perpetuating the disparities in academic achievement we see today. Finally, Jim Crow laws perpetuated a legacy of mistrust and intolerance towards minorities in America. They created a culture of sanctioned racism, which allowed for violent acts against Black Americans to go virtually unpunished, such as lynching, which remained legal in several southern states until the mid-1960s.

All sort of things like hospitals, prisons, and schools were all made to a quality less than the whites had to demonstrate the African Americans inferior status. Jim Crow Laws that continued this chain of separation were, blacks could not eat at white restaurants, a black male could not shake hands with a white man or have any relations with white women. These laws allowed whites to be able to beat and punish those who disobeyed them, and it was that which led to the hundreds of race riots and lynchings of African

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 white people down in the south, aka the confederate states, were the people who had started the “Jim Crow Laws” because they’re racist and wanted power over the black people. They also made it hard for black people to vote and do things. They weren’t in control of black people but they were bossing them around. Black people also didn’t get enough freedom, as the white people separated them. Blacks got old stuff, whites got new stuff.

Racism’s Impact on Reconstruction While the issue of slavery evidently contributed to the divide that resulted in the American Civil War, it is debated whether prevailing ideals of racism caused the failure of the era following the war known as Reconstruction. With the abolishment of slavery, many of the southern states had to reassemble the social, economic, and political systems instilled in their societies. The Reconstruction Era was originally led by a radical republican government that pushed to raise taxes, establish coalition governments, and deprive former confederates of superiority they might have once held. However, during this time common views were obtained that the South could recover independently and that African Americans

As the Era of Reconstruction began in the latter half of the 1860s, the Union was forced to confront the following question: Who is an American? Would Southerners be rewarded for their treason, or would African Americans finally be able to bask in the glory of freedom? Following the war, the Radical Republican government made its post-war intentions clear: to reunite the country and to bestow full rights to blacks. “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as G-d gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation 's wounds” (Lincoln). Reconstruction culminated in 1877 due to economic crisis and a lack of Northern will.