...After the Civil War ended in 1865, the States tried to rebuild themselves and come back together as a country. One question about Reconstruction still lingers today: Did this period of time help African Americans with having the American Dream? According to my research, Reconstruction (mostly) did not help African Americans, but some laws made during this time would benefit them. African Americans were looked down upon when Jim Crow Laws were enacted and during the forming of the Klu Klux Klan. To begin with, Jim Crow Laws were laws that enforced segregation on African Americans and other people of color. Based on the “Separate but Equal” policy from Plessy vs. Ferguson, there were two different facilities, even water fountains, for each race: Colored and White. African Americans could not go into any white facility. There was no change in how they were treated between the Civil War and Reconstruction; they just were not slaves anymore. These laws were made from loopholes in the Constitution and other laws, basically giving African Americans the same rights that they...
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...Race in the Turn of the Century America After the Civil War, America had entered the Reconstruction phase, and there were many issues within the nation that continued and further developed due simply to race. During this time, “the color line was firmly established in American culture, and there was infrequent crossing of the divide” (Bowles, 2011, section 2.3, para 17). There was unquestionable detriment to the growth of the African American community, as well as increased timidity for basic African American rights. The issues of segregation and racism that were so prominent during this era in America were one of the ways that Black Americans remained almost invisible in a white society. Despite the end of the Civil War and the emancipation of slaves, race continued to be a problem in early twentieth century America. One of the most critical issues surrounding the further entrenchment of racial segregation within the early twentieth century was the development of policies and laws that did not follow the emancipation guidelines for ex-slaves, but instead made segregation and discrimination of African Americans more prominent. These laws were at first called the Black Codes, allowing for differences in the way that African Americans were treated both privately and publically. Even Supreme Court cases, like Plessy vs. Ferguson, further allowed for racism to be a compelling factor within the nation. This case allowed for the expansion of the Black Codes instead of abolishing...
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...America’s Post-Civil War Growing Pains The Reconstruction Era was the time period from 1865-1877 after the Civil War ended. The South was severely damaged from the war. Farms, railroads and bridges were destroyed and The South had tremendous hurdles to overcome to get back on track. The North entered a time where politicians took the opportunity to pass laws that southerners in Congress had resisted before. Businesses started to boom and take shape. The Reconstruction Era was the time period where the government attempts to resolve the issues resulting from the end of the Civil War. One turning point was The Freedman’s Bureau was established by Congress in 1865 to build schools, food and medical care to needy southern black and white people and to ensure equal access to the judicial system for southerners both black and white. It also urged former slave owners and former slaves to work as employers and employees rather than master and slaves. The Bureau was managed by Union Army General Oliver O. Howard, in which the historical black college Howard University is named after. The biggest achievement by the bureau was in education. Before the Civil War, there were no state-supported public education which still in effect today. The ex-slaves long to learn to read and write, and this was a major priority for the bureau and by 1870 more than 1,000 schools had be established. The Freedman’s Bureau was only suppose last for a year, but Congress renewed its charter bill extended...
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...1. Amnesty was a pardon to southerners. 2. Andrew Johnson became president after Lincoln’s assassination. 3. Black Codes prevented African Americans from reaching equality with southern whites. 4. Reconstruction Acts divided the Confederacy into 5 military districts. 5. Carpetbaggers were the name of northern Republicans. 6. The Compromise of 1877 made Republicans withdraw the federal troops from the south and the Democrats accepted President Hayes. 7. Sharecropping was a system that gave laborers a share of the crop, a cabin, seed, tools, and a mule. 8. Jim Crow laws were a series of laws that enforced segregation. 9. Madame C.J. Walker was the first black woman millionaire. 10. Booker T. Washington encourages African Americans to be educated...
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...African American History April 13, 2013 Final Paper Laws of Jim Crow (Final) The Jim Crow laws were as discriminatory as it gets when it came to race, as it separated what it considered inferior races from the white race. George agrees with other historians that Jim Crow was not a real person but one of fiction (6). Jim Crow laws were created in the late 1800’s and lasted until the 1960’s. Louisiana did not pass the first Jim Crow law until 1890, even though racial segregation and discrimination had their start much earlier. Soon after, other southern states passed similar laws prohibiting blacks from being seated with whites on railway cars. After studying the history of Jim Crow, Kantrowitz believed that the Jim Crow system was based on the assertions that whites believed themselves to be superior to blacks intellectually and morally. Sexual relations between blacks and whites were also a big issue because many whites believed that the mixing of races would produce a mongrel race and would destroy the fabric of America (35-38). On the other hand, George conveys that the main idea behind the Jim Crow laws was two-fold because Jim Crow was established to keep blacks separate and to make them believe that they were an inferior race (9). Jim Crow had the law on its side because no matter what, the law made it clear that discrimination against the blacks in the Southern states was okay. Many whites did not have a personal problem associating with blacks, as long...
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...years of bloodshed that left over 600,000 Confederate and Union soldiers dead, the Confederacy collapsed and much of the south’s infrastructure had been destroyed. The Civil War had come to an end. Slavery was abolished and the difficult process of restoring national unity and guaranteeing civil rights to the freed slaves began. This period is noted in history as the Reconstruction Era. Working towards a progressive tomorrow, the American Civil War marked the start of a dramatic shift in America’s thinking. At the start of the Reconstruction Era (post Civil War), the South was left torn apart. Roads and houses needed to be rebuilt and the people needed assistance. From 1863 to 1865, presidents Andrew Johnson and Abraham Lincoln took adequate steps designed solely for the purpose of bringing the South back to a level of economic stability. Radical Republicans consisted of American politicians within the Republican Party. They supported the rights of African Americans to vote, hold political office, and have the same economic and legal freedoms and opportunities as the whites. During the whole of the Reconstruction Period two ideas were constantly agitating the minds of the coloured people, or at least, the minds of a large part of the race. One of these was the craze for Greek and Latin learning, and the other was a desire to hold office. (38) booker t This quote comes from Booker T. Washington’s, Up From Slavery. It shows that the ideas that blacks had for themselves...
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...Lyrical Analysis For many years African Americans have struggled with segregation and inequality. The 1940s Blues song discusses some of the racial aspects of the era and focuses on issues dealing with Jim Crow laws. Near the end of Reconstruction in 1877, Jim Crow laws were passed and were intended to put restrictions on African American rights and privileges (Brown and Stentiford XVII). For Example, the Jim Crow Laws segregated bus seating and train cars. The buses had the back reserved for African Americans (Wormser 162) and the trains reserved certain cars called “smokers” or “Jim Crow cars” for African Americans (Wormser 63). Also, the term “separate but equal” was an important statement in the Jim Crow era. This statement describes how segregation was passed as constitutional. Even though colored individuals and white individuals had separate facilities, they were supposedly equivalent in quality, even though this was never the case (Klarman 43 and 50-51). The blues song that I have chosen discusses many of the issues that African Americans faced due to the Jim Crow Laws and discrimination in general, but most noticeably discusses issues dealing with war segregation. During World War I and World War II, African Americans were recruited to the American Army. They were trained for battle, but normally were not involved in the fighting of the battles. The African American community hoped that their involvement would help further the fight for equality, but learned it was...
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...occurrence of legalized discrimination in her book called "The New Jim Crow." The New Jim Crow indicates that even though slavery has been long abolished, systemized inequalities still exists. There is a strong existence in employment opportunities, educational systems, public assistance, and jury selections across the country. Without taking a closer look, one could easily believe that the prison system is designed to rehabilitate those who have had trouble with the law. However, there is a question as to whether those who are truly rehabilitated have access to equal opportunities when released from correctional facilities. One can further question whether those persons are given fair...
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...Abstract In this essay you will learn about the civil war, reconstruction, the progressive era, the great depression, and the civil rights era. Also the American Anti-Slavery and Civil rights Timeline, 1854-1896 during the civil war era. Identify and describe two examples of the U.S. Authority Expansion between the beginning of the U.S. Civil War and the end of the Civil War Era? (1) The twelve years following the Civil War carried consequences for the nation’s future. Reconstruction helped set the pattern for future race relations and defined the federal government’s role in promoting equality. This section describes President Lincoln’s and Johnson’s plan to readmit the confederate states to the Union as well as the more stringent Congressional plan; it also describes the power struggle between President Andrew Johnson and congress, including the vote over the president’s impeachment. This section also identifies the groups that ruled the southern state governments from 1866-1877 and explains why Reconstruction ended in 1877. (2) Immediately following the war, all-white Southern legislatures passed black code which denied blacks the right purchase or rent land. These efforts to force former slaves to work on plantations led Congressional Republicans to seize control of Reconstruction from President Andrew Johnson, deny representatives from the former Confederate states their Congressional seats, and pass the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and draft...
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...Reconstruction and Race Relations – Final Paper Reconstruction and Race Relations Paper William H. Orris Professor Ralph Millsap HIS105021VA016-1138-001: Contemporary U.S. History November 6, 2013, 2013 Reconstruction and Race Relations Abstract This paper explores race relations amongst the people after the Civil War and during the Reconstruction era of the nineteenth century. The Southern whites tried to maintain their status quo of supremacy. The following will describe techniques that the southern whites used in an effort to keep the south as it was in the antebellum. Laws were enacted to protect the civil rights of the freed people and those born in the United States. In some case these laws were stricken down by the Supreme Court. Laws were also created in the south to minimize the freedoms of the newly freed people. These laws were called “Black Codes” and “Jim Crow Laws.” In America’s south was the first domestic terrorist group the Ku Klux Klan which started as a social club in Tennessee. This paper will describe some of the issues that started in the nineteenth century and carry on today. In the south the wealthy and politically connected white people refused to let go of their way of life after the Civil War. The southerners did all they could to maintain a status quo. In their minds the war did not change anything. After the Civil War the white southern power structure used the following techniques to make the exercise...
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...During the Reconstruction era (1865) there were many blacks living as free men among the whites, the white people still did not want to give full rights to the blacks so they came up with jim crow laws. Jim crow laws sole purpose was to take rights away from blacks and degrade them as humans, the origin of the name Jim Crow goes back to theater around 1830. Jim Crow laws were not only unethical but illegal according to the U.S bill of rights, the Black people did not take these laws laying down and showed civil disobedience in order to try to combat these laws. Many works of literature such as To Kill a Mockingbird make references to Jim crow laws and the impact they had on blacks. The origin of the word Jim Crow dates back to theater when...
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...collapse of Jim Crow, especially seeing the great success experienced by some African Americans, we start to feel the system of racial caste is officially dead and buried. However, that is just an illusion. Behind the rhetoric of institutionalized equity, our criminal justice system is working as the new Jim Crow preventing blacks from participating in our electoral democracy. While Constitutional amendments guaranteed African Americans "equal protection of the laws" and the right to vote, through a web of laws, regulations, and informal rules, all of which are powerfully reinforced by social stigma, they are confined to the margins of mainstream society and denied access to the mainstream economy. During the Reconstruction Era, whites felt threatened and outraged as African Americans were exposed to more social and economic opportunities and started to obtain political power. To turn the table and regain all the black labors they had for free for centuries, southern states drastically increased the penalties for minor offenses. Southern conservatives founded Ku Klux Klan, which fought a terrorist campaign against Reconstruction governments and local leaders, complete with bombings, lynchings, and mob violence. I can never forget those horrible pictures in which some white onlookers were smiling or laughing with the blacks burning or hung on the tree in the background. How sick they had to be to enjoy watching another human being tortured and murdered? Reconstruction failed bitterly...
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...The term “Jim Crow” came from an old African American song called “Jump Jim Crow.” In 1828, a white man named Rice would wear a black face make up, sing, dance and act foolish. Many people started calling black people “Jim Crows” to offend them. Jim Crow laws took place in America and they were laws that segregated the white from blacks. These laws supported the idea that blacks were inferior to whites. Blacks and whites weren’t allowed to interact with each other. Jim Crow was the informal term for types of precise separation utilized by whites against African Americans from the second half of the nineteenth century through the main portion of the twentieth. The expression implies the legal parts of the shading line, additionally incorporates the social and typical traditions of progressive race relations. Jim Crow laws separated blacks and whites. These rules stated what a black person...
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...During the Reconstruction era after the Civil War, President Andrew Jackson put the 13th amendment into the constitution stating, all slavery is abolished in the United States. Slaves and African Americans were starting to feel free, yet wanted more than that; to be equal as the whites. Whites believed they were superior to blacks and treated them like dogs. However, African Americans and slaves weren’t alone, Radical Republicans also wanted them to be equal. Radical Republicans gained enough support from others across the country for Jackson to pass the 14th amendment, addresses citizenship and equality to all former slaves in America. At this time, former slaves believed they were just as equal as the whites since it was stated on paper, yet they never were treated fully equal and continued to be put down by whites and even had to obey to certain laws called Jim Crow Laws. Jim Crow laws were laws set in the South for African Americans that segregated them from whites and were to be treated differently. For an example, whites didn’t...
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...Chapter 23 1. “Waving the bloody shirt”: * a term used during elections for those who fought in the Civil War * many used this to win the election during the reconstruction 2. Tweed Ring: * “Boss” Tweed * Corrupt powerful in machine politics 3. Credit Mobilier Scandal: * Union Pacific railroad company created a construction company to steal money from the government- gov. pays for railroads * Important because government money was stolen 4. Panic of 1873: * production was greater than demanded * soft (paper) vs. hard (gold and silver) money; Greenback labor party- wanted more greenbacks- they elected 14 members of congress (party of farmers) 5. Gilded Age: * known as the “era of good stealing’s” * politics used the term “waving the bloody shirt” 6. Compromise of 1877: * Hayes (rep.) and Tilden (dem.) ran in the 1877 election * Hayes wins and reconstruction ends and the creation of the Jim Crow laws happens 7. Sharecropping: * after the slaves were freed they went back to work on the plantations but as sharecroppers * Sharecroppers always in debt 8. Jim Crow: * Southern states passed laws to deny civil rights to freedmen; white supremacy * Pole tax- pay tax because you exist- only enforced on freedmen- right to vote 9. Plessy v. Ferguson: * Supreme Court case- a black man bought a first class train ticket. * Court ruled “separate but equal” is constitutional ...
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