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Was Reconstruction A Success Or Fail

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Before the inception of NAACP in 1909 black leadership was scarce; this, one believes, is the most significant reason as to why there was no sustained progress in the struggle for Civil Rights. Of course, there some progress was made, most notably during Reconstruction (1865-1877) wherein the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments were passed by Congress, but all of this work was reversed by the subsequent Redemption period. There is much debate as to why Reconstruction failed; some believe that it was the lack of economic power in the black community that caused the failure. This idea is echoed by Robert Cook who states, "One of the principal reasons why southern blacks were unable to thwart the conservative counter-revolution…which occurred in the …show more content…
Had an effective leader mobilised against the forces of Redemption and campaigned for Confederate reparations the economic conditions for sustaining the improvements of Reconstruction may have been created. Instead the responsibility was left with the overwhelmingly white Freedmen’s Bureau and the situation for blacks became more desperate as the culture of white anger developed unchecked and commentators like William A. Dunning were allowed to spread racist narratives, calling Reconstruction a, “radical republican scheme, motivated by hatred of white southerners, to impose corrupt rule of blacks, scalawags and carpetbaggers on southern states"3 The very fact that this view could be considered mainstream at the time points to a complete lack of black opposition and the lack of a black voice; above all else this is what caused the failure of Reconstruction and the black economic status can only be called a symptom of this greater

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