African Americans Equality Movement During The Reconstruction Era

The Era of Reconstruction was based upon citizenship and equality. Reconstruction was a way that redefined African Americans place in Society. After the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation allowing all slaves to be free. The Emancipation Proclamation was limited in many ways as it only applied to states within the rebellion. However, it influenced citizens in the North and the South to accept the abolition of slavery. In 1865, the Freedman’s Bureau was established by congress to provide aid to the newly freed African Americans to help with their transition from slavery. The Freedman’s Bureau provided food, housing, medical aid, schools, and promised to settle former slaves on confiscated or abandoned land. In 1865, the 13th Amendment was passed by Congress officially abolishing slavery. During this time of Reconstruction, land ownership was the key to economic autonomy. Former slaves sought to proclaim their independence.

The 13th Amendment turned the southern states into chaos. Even though the 13th Amendment allowed the freedom of African Americans it was still used as punishment for crime; in order to achieve free labor. The hopeful promise of land from the Freedman’s Bureau was returned back to the ex-confederates. Former slaves were then encouraged to go work as wage earners from their former owners. This allowed southern landowners to reestablish a labor force similar to slavery. This type of system, Sharecropping, allowed a tenant farmer to use land in return for a small share of the crop. Sharecropping gave African American a lot more freedom but kept them in debt generationally.

African Americans were granted legal freedom but little more. Black Codes were used to restore the old order of slavery. The Black Codes granted certain freedoms to African American such as the right to own property and to marry within race. The Black Codes were more so intended to restrict labor and activity. The codes denied blacks from voting, testifying in court, and serving in juries or militia. This allowed southern whites to withhold political power and keep the slave mentality alive, guaranteeing cheap labor. This tied black workers to land that they didn’t own, oppressing the freedom of the newly freed slaves.

Republicans responded with the Civil Rights act of 1866, which was the first federal attempt to constitutionally define all American-born residents as citizens. The 14th amendment developed along with the Civil Rights Act, which granted equal civil and legal rights to slaves who have been emancipated after the Civil War. It ensured that state laws could not discriminate against a particular group of people. Black Americans began to join in local, state, and federal government for the first time in history. The southern society tried to find loopholes as to why black men could not vote or partake in political parties.

The 15th Amendment was passed by Congress in 1869, in order to prevent disenfranchisement. The 15th Amendment granted citizens the right to vote regardless of race, or color, this redefined the terms of democracy. In a short time, African Americans began to hold positions of power. Over 2,000 African American men served in office despite the intimidating approaches that were used to confine them. While advancement of equality was underway, Jim Crow laws were put in place in the south. Jim Crow Laws discriminated against African Americans by denying them access to “white-only” railroad cars, restaurants, and other public facilities. States began passing laws that required voters to pass a literacy test and pay poll taxes. This was a way of using voter suppression tactics. Jim crow laws made it nearly impossible for black men to vote as well as poor white men.

Reconstruction ended with the Compromise of 1877. The presidential election of 1876 which put Rutherford B. Hayes into office in exchange for the withdrawal of federal troops from the south. Before the Civil War, all white men regardless of property ownership were granted the opportunity to vote and African Americans lacked physical and economic freedom. Reconstruction set a new political and social order for the south that laid the foundations for the civil rights movement. All though Reconstruction had many failures such as limiting Black Americans freedom to vote and the right to own land. The success’ of Reconstruction such as the Emancipation Proclamation and the Reconstruction Amendments helped to abolish slavery and planted the seeds for change that America would later build upon.

Works Cited

1. The American Yawp: A Free and Online, Collaboratively Built American History Textbook. Edited by Joseph Locke and Ben Wright (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2019). [License: CC BY-SA 4.0]. (accessed 10 October 2019).