...Reconstruction and Race Relations XXXXXXXX Professor XXXXXX Contemporary U.S. History October 17, 2013 Reconstruction and Race Relations The Civil War consisted of several events during the Reconstruction period. Many complications occurred between white Americans and black people as the struggle for equality began. Prior to the end of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln drafted the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. The Wade-Davis Bill was proposed by Congress to counter Lincoln’s 10 percent rule for support. The Wade-Davis Bill suggested that 51 percent of voters pledge support to the United States before being accepted back into the Union. Lincoln pocket-vetoed this bill in order to prevent it from becoming law (Reconstruction Following the Civil War, 1999). The ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865 abolished slavery in the South (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2013). The Freedmen’s Bureau was established in 1865 by congress during the Reconstruction period and was designed to manage new schools, provide food and healthcare to the new freed African Americans. Led by Major General Oliver O. Howard, The Bureau’s most notable achievement was the establishment of education by building more than 1,000 black schools and expending over $400,000 on establishing teacher-training institutions. The greatest failure was the disbursement of abandoned lands to the freed slaves. The south was determined to make the transition to freedom very difficult for the...
Words: 1379 - Pages: 6
...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...
Words: 1912 - Pages: 8
...Terry Hammons October 23rd 2012 Abstract This paper is going to incorporate the key elements that contributed to the early revolution within American History. We are going to discuss the Presidential and the Congressional Reconstruction which occurred between 1865 to 1867, and how it laid the foundation to the dramatic changes of governmental ordinances and political ethics. Following that, we will discuss the ratification of the 15th amendment, enactment of the “Jim Crow” laws, Civil Rights Act, Wounded Knee, and the Spanish American War. This essay will attempt to illustrate the events that wrought change to the Americas, the key fueling factors in the momentum of change. The Presidential Reconstruction began with Andrew Johnson’s impeachment. Johnson possessed a background that mirrored Abraham Lincoln’s. Johnson was raised in poverty, which fueled his drive for prosperity and aided in his development into a businessman. Johnson was also a very qualified candidate for the presidency and boasted a politically accomplished resume.(Jenkins, 2003) Unfortunately, Johnson’s extreme disdain for the slavery lead to his demise, this was often translated into the belief that his plans for American restoration and reconstruction would be extremely detrimental to southerners, even worse then Abraham Lincoln’s plans. Republican extremist fought for him to incorporate Black suffrage, but Johnson viewed this unfavorable. Not only was Johnson a punctilious nationalist...
Words: 1993 - Pages: 8
...Unit I: Essay Exam: Reconstruction & Rise of Industry US History Since 1877 Professor Valdenia Winn February 14, 2013 According to Dictionary.com, radical means: 1. Of or going to the root or origin; fundamental: a radical difference. 2. Thoroughgoing or extreme, especially as regards change from accepted or traditional forms. Historians identified Congressional Reconstruction as “radical” because of how the South tried to elude the Thirteenth Amendment. Because of these extreme circumstances the federal government had to intervene, which at that point made it radical to most historians. The root of the problem was slavery and the problem solver was the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. The Thirteenth Amendment prohibited slavery. The Fourteenth Amendment established national citizenship for persons born or naturalized in the United States. It also prohibited the states from depriving citizens of their civil rights or equal protection under the law as well as reduced state representation in the House of Representatives by the percentage of adult male citizens denied the vote. The Fifteenth Amendment forbade states to deny citizens the right to vote on the grounds of race, color, or “previous condition of servitude”. Another problem solver was the establishment of the Freedmen’s Bureau, which was there to aid former slaves get on their feet and supervise “all relief and educational activities relating to refugees and...
Words: 963 - Pages: 4
...Essay Question 1: What did W. E. B. Du Bois mean by his concept of "the color-line", and how did it come to be defined so strictly over time? The idea of “the color –line” alludes basically to the part of race and prejudice in history and society. Be that as it may, of need, for Du Bois, it requires a multidimensional examination which recognizes and looks to comprehend the convergence of race and class as both methods of mastery and methods of resistance on the national and worldwide level. Du Bois connects with the inquiries of race, racial mastery and racial misuse with the understood recommendation that “the issue of the twentieth century is the issue of the shading line." In 1924, W. E. B. Dubois said this in regards to race relations in the United States. He said, "The issue of the twentieth century will be the issue of the shading line." That is, the overwhelming issue amid the century would be the racial clash in the middle of Blacks and whites. Today, regardless of the advancement our nation has made in race relations, despite everything we have an approaches to go. It was the line that held the best employments in the economy for one gathering of individuals, while denying them to another through both the law and private organizations, for example, organizations and, to its ruin, numerous unions who denied participation and occupations to those on the wrong side of the shading line. Also, it is the same shading line that would reject occupations to those on...
Words: 765 - Pages: 4
...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...
Words: 857 - Pages: 4
...unacceptable. The democratic opposition worried that this new caste of Freedmen would become a powerful force, one that could potentially alter the entire social structure of American society. Moreover, the opponents to emancipation and black equality were also concerned with the sanctity and purity of white blood and many feared that another term under Lincoln would mean that “compulsory marriage of white and black had finally become the main plan in the republican platform.” To that end, two New York City Democrats devised a plan which they believed would reveal that the “mongrelization” of America, or the amalgamation of races, was indeed the final goal of the Republican Party. The “miscegenation hoax,” as it came to be known, was their plan to disenfranchise republican voters in the coming 1864 election. The war was the primary focus of the election of 1864, but race and the future of...
Words: 2974 - Pages: 12
...slave child during the Civil War, to the difficulties and obstacles he overcame to get an education at the new Hampton University, to his work establishing vocational schools—most notably the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama—to help black people and other disadvantaged minorities learn useful, marketable skills and work to pull themselves, as a race, up by the bootstraps. He reflects on the generosity of both teachers and philanthropists who helped in educating blacks and native Americans. He describes his efforts to instill manners, breeding, health and a feeling of dignity to students. His educational philosophy stresses combining academic subjects with learning a trade (something which is reminiscent of the educational theories of John Ruskin). Washington explained that the integration of practical subjects is partly designed to reassure the white community as to the usefulness of educating black people. This text, while certainly a biography of his life, is in fact an illustration of the problem facing African Americans by detailing the problems of one. By showing how he has risen from servitude to success, he demonstrates how others of his race can do the same, as well as how sympathizers can aid in the process.[1] This book was first released as a serialized work in 1900 through The Outlook, a Christian newspaper of New York. It is important to mention that this work was serialized because this meant that during the writing process, Washington was able to hear critiques and requests...
Words: 2267 - Pages: 10
...The reconstruction of the 13th and 14th and 15th amendments White people did not want blacks to stand up and participate in political or any kind of issues or freedom or become educated 1. When the 13th Amendment abolished slavery in 1865, and the black people embraced education, built their own churches, reunited with their broken families and worked very hard in the sharecropping system, nothing was enough for the Reconstruction to succeed. 2. Whites never gave total freedom to African Americans. Blacks were forced to endure curfews, passes, and living on rented land, which put them in a similar situation as slaves. In 1866, the KKK started a wave of violence and abuse against 3. Negroes in the south, destroying their properties, assaulting and killing them in different ways, just because anger white people do not want the blacks to stand up and join in political or any kind of issues or freedom. The Reconstruction Amendment freed African American from slavery and stablish some key rights for them. 13th Amendment 1. Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation declaration. all people that were...
Words: 1010 - Pages: 5
...The Black Experience: 1865 to Present Valery Taylor HIS 204 Prof. Steven Harn September 10, 2012 The Black Experience: 1865 to Present In the late nineteenth century our country has been defined by native born versus immigrants, rich versus poor and worker versus capitalist. But, in the former Confederacy, despite the call for the New South after Reconstruction tension still focused on the relationships between blacks and whites. Being of African American decent and raising a African American son I can still see the systematic effects of segregation, discrimination and isolation. However, through the civil rights movements of the past African American have attained equal rights in the present. In this paper, I will take a journey through the historical timeline of slavery. In addition, I will discuss historical events from 1865 to present that ended segregation, discrimination and isolation to attain equal rights. Africans were shipped to North America as Slaves in the 1600's, by 1787 the writers of the United States Constitution decided that slaves will count as three fifth of a person when deciding how many representative each state will have in Congress. In 1820 the Missouri Compromise was designed to maintain the number of free and slave states. During that period there were many notable freed slave that played significant roles in the advancement of the slaves. Isabella Baumfree also know as Sojourner Truth played a significant role...
Words: 1417 - Pages: 6
...The civil war and the inception of the US constitution played a critical and pivotal role in the reconstruction of the modern US society. From these events, it was possible for the United States to become a single state and a unified nation, which finally ended slavery and thus expanded the applicable ideals that led to the declaration of independence. Historians argue that the civil war remains to be a critical event in the United States history; this is because this war was able to end the animosity caused by the inevitable climax of conflicts and sectional tensions. This paper will discuss the evolution of the modern US society from the inception of the constitution through the civil war and reconstruction. United States constitution remains to be the oldest constitution in the world and since its inception in 1787; it has played a critical role in the development of the modern US society (Sammis, 1997). Historians argue that the United States constitution has helped in providing a remarkable degree of political stability in the US, a country known for its social diversity. According to law experts, since the inception of the US constitution it has been possible to silence matters that seem to be sensitive in regards to the modern way of living. Moreover, the US constitution enabled the sanctions of the slavery, which remained to be the cause of the animosity before the civil war. On the other hand, before the US civil war, the then US President Abraham Lincoln had began...
Words: 838 - Pages: 4
...If freedmen had started out immediately with the imitation equal rights granted to blacks during Reconstruction, then African Americans would sooner achieve truly equal rights. This would jump-start the overthrowing of racist social institutions and the renewal of expectations, for, as S. Mintz and S. McNeil(2013) said, “Reconstruction helped set the pattern for future race relations and defined the federal government's role in promoting racial equality”(par. 2). However, I don’t believe that African Americans could’ve started out in post-Civil War U.S. with completely equal rights because of the lingering racism toward blacks possessed by the Democrats and moderate Republicans, who were necessary to gaining a two-thirds majority on any piece of legislature. Strong racism in all parts of the country would be awakened at full force if African Americans were allowed equal rights...
Words: 925 - Pages: 4
...freedom and civil rights that constitute citizenship has been a tumultuous process that has been met with roadblocks put in place to uphold the subordinate-superordinate relationship between races in America. With almost every major stride towards obtaining universal freedom and full legal social citizenship, there is a backlash that undermines legislation one popular case being the Jim Crow laws being implemented after the ratification of reconstruction era amendments only further driving a wedge between the two. Instances such as these occur multiple times throughout history cross-culturally leading many historians to believe that history is cyclical as opposed to linear. The saying “History repeats itself” is based on these beliefs and for the most part based somewhat in truth. With that being said, can this be applied to the struggle of blacks in obtaining citizenship and if so will it ever lead to social and civic criteria of citizenship being met. Stanford Lyman in chapter two of his book The Black American in...
Words: 529 - Pages: 3
...countries and are threatening to break out in many places around the globe. Too much blood has been shed for ethnic and racial causes and too many have died in ethnic and racial wars. In accordance to the constructivist model of nationalism, identity (re)construction solves ethnic and racial civil conflict. Definition For the purpose of demonstrating how identity (re)construction solves ethnic and racial civil conflicts, “solve” can be defined as 1) to explain and 2) to put an end to, settle. In addition, “explain” means to make clear the cause, origin or reason of. Furthermore, an ethnicity is a population of human beings whose members identify with each other, on the basis of a real or a presumed common genealogy or ancestry. The term race refers to the concept of dividing people into populations or groups on the basis of various sets of physical characteristics (which usually result from genetic ancestry.) Literature Review In contrast to constructivists who argue ethnic and racial identities are flexible social constructions that can be manipulated by political entrepreneurs and more or less freely adopted or ignored by individuals, primordialists see ethnic and racial identities as fixed by linguistic, thinking and behavioral background....
Words: 2466 - Pages: 10
...allies assembled to gain control of local and state governments. This alliance of “Radicals” quickly began rewriting state constitutions, and made considerable progress in establishing civil and political equality. They promoted a fairer system of legal justice, and instituted basic social services such as public education and care for the orphaned and the aged. Those who were against this equality did everything in their power to thwart the Radical’s efforts. Sinking cotton prices, and wide-spread corruption undermined the strength and integrity of these governments. National disgust at the spectacle, however, bolstered the white opposition in the South. The 1870 passage of the Fifteenth Amendment, prohibiting disfranchisement because of race, added fuel to the fire of white supremacists and Democrats. By 1870, the South had a new group of individuals which had control over most of the land, The Ku Klux Klan. Members of the KKK were not the courageous supporters of white rights portrayed in...
Words: 595 - Pages: 3
