Reconstructing America

     The Reconstruction Era is known as the most significant time of the American civil rights. This period starts off with lots of questions, for it began with General Robert E Lee surrendering to General Ulysses S Grant. This ultimately meant the end of the civil war, and was supposed to mean the end of slavery, but this era proved quite differently. This era treated African Americans worse than they had ever imagined.

    The civil war ruined any possible chance of the states all coming together. The South states that the Union is trying to take away their rights, while the Union states that they simply want to abolish slavery. After the war, the Southern economy was ruined, for they had no slaves to make a profit off of.

    The initial idea behind the Reconstruction Era was to rebuild this new United States without slavery, and to figure out how to deal with the effects of the end of the civil war. Lincoln is president during this time, but not for long, for he is shot, by John Wilkes Booth, before he can really put his ideas into effect. After Lincoln is shot, Andrew Johnson succeeds him, and this is where things really go down hill.

    Johnson had quite different views from Lincoln and Congress. Now, before Johnson, there was the Freedman's Bureau, which gave newly freed men 40 acres of land to make profit off of. Johnson had been making pardons to confederates for land, so he told Oliver Howard to give that land back to the confederates that he had pardoned. This of course upset those who were already living on and working on that land, but there was nothing that they could do. 

    There were several other instances of black people being treated unfairly during the Reconstruction. For starters, black codes, which included a labor contract for black adults, existed to limit the freedom of black people. Those who refused to sign the contract were fined, and if they could not pay the fine, they would be auctioned off until the paid off the fine. Also, the KKK, which served the the same purpose as slave patrols, existed to monitor and enforce rules on black people. Riots in Memphis and New Orleans, which included lots of white people going around and killing innocent black people, led to lots of uproar in the United States.

    The Reconstruction Era teased black people with the promise of freedom and the hope of a better life. It really just lit a fire in the South's butt, and inspired them to figure out new ways to get blacks back under their control. Andrew Johnson also proved himself to be on the opposite side of freedom for black and for the unifying of the states.