Was There Any Success in Reconstruction?

The topic of reconstruction was the start of a change in America, the civil war was over and America needed a new start. The goal of reconstruction was to rejoin all the states to the Union and to rebuild the South. Reconstruction was supposed to help not only Whites but freed slaves as well, and as we see in the end freedmen were provided freedom for a short period of time and then it was essentially taken away again. With the passing of the 13th-15th amendment and the northerners willing to provide their services in the south freedmen began to experience rights like everyone else but life was still segregated. Then with the passing of Jim Crow Laws the lives of so called “freedmen” was once again changed.

Reconstruction was executed badly in many areas. Freedmen were no longer “chattel” but former slave owners and prejudice white men continued to see African Americans as a different species instead of seeing them as equals. Former slave masters always worried about their slaves attacking them while they were their slaves and now since they were free it was an even bigger worry. Because of this fear Black Codes were established. Blacks couldn’t meet in groups of more than 10 without a white man around to watch them. The limit on freedom was intensified when the Klu Klux Klan was created in 1865 to terrorize blacks by scaring them into not voting and using violence because these members felt that blacks did not deserve to be seen as equal. The KKK striked again when the financial panic of 1873 hit and they realized that if they could get 10-15 white southerners to vote against republicans then they could get the results that they wanted.

The limit to blacks freedom continued when the end of reconstruction occurred and Jim Crow Laws had been established. They consisted of three laws: 1) The Grandfathered Clause, which stated that if your grandfather was a slave then you couldn’t vote. This law applied to 95% of former slaves. 2) The Literacy Test, which was the test you had to pass if you wanted to have the right to vote. It applied to both blacks and whites but the tests were created harder for blacks to try and make sure they wouldn’t pass. 3) The Poll Tax, which was a tax you had to pay if you wanted to vote. Once