The Second Reconstruction: The Success Of The Civil Rights Movement

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One of the main goals of Reconstruction was to require that the South give African-Americans equal rights. With slavery abolished, the Federal Government decided that it was now time to give African-Americans the rights given to the rest of American citizens. This was in the mid 1800s. Needless to say, these plans were not put in place, or at least not properly enforced, for many more years. It took a well-organized uprising by African-Americans about 100 years later to finally make some progress. This uprising was known as the Civil Rights Movement, and because of its common goals, it is also referred to as the Second Reconstruction. Unlike the original Reconstruction, the Civil Rights Movement is classified by many people as a success. The Civil Rights Movement brought a degree of closure to a problem that was initially addressed many years before. …show more content…

Among the most important was the status of African-Americans in this newly reconciled nation. After Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, African-American were legally no longer slaves, but were they citizens (Tindall and Shi, p. 707)? The Emancipation Proclamation really only gave African-Americans the illusion of equality. With state law defining citizenship, Southern African-American weren’t treated any better post-slavery (Tindall and Shi, pp.707-708). In fact, it is very possible that some African-Americans, during the years immediately following the abolition of slavery, were worse off than

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