Reconstruction Era

The Reconstruction Act of 1867 cut the South into five military districts that were controlled by the army. During this time Andrew Johnson was president. The President granted many pardons to Confederate leaders. The Reconstruction Era expanded many franchises, evolved the relationship between states and the federal government, and underlined key differences between economic and political democracy. This time period allowed for the United States to be unified as a nation, and led to other states making constitutions, and evolving into the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. 

During the Reconstruction Era, African Americans thrived. Black people were finally able to be considered human, citizens, and “African Americans”. These newly freed slaves were becoming people once more. Black people felt as if they were released from a death collar around their necks. Dark-skinned people were able to grow, advance, and thrive more than they have ever before with their new “citizenship”. 

There were many factors, people, and other concepts that still tried to put African Americans back into their cages. However black people did not let these factors collide with their goals and progress as new citizens. It took extremely long for the idea of returning to the old south to fade away to a minimum. A huge part of blacks gaining citizenship was because of “scalawags”. Scalawags were known as white Southerners who joined the Republican Party and promoted Reconstruction. 

Since African Americans had much more privileges than before, this also led to many upcoming issues regarding congress. The number of black MEN(women had little say still) in congress amplified throughout the Reconstruction era. The first black male in congress was Hiram Rhodes Revels. He was elected in 1870 and won 81 to 15 in the Mississippi legislature. It was a shock finding this out because Mississippi is known to be very Southern. With more and more African Americans in more powerful positions, this was seen as a safeguard and shield for black people. Blacks seemed to be able to get their voice, ideas, and concepts heard more thoroughly with their own kind of representatives in congress. 

Although African Americans now had much more power, there were many factors that were against blacks still. Many people wanted blacks to crawl back into their holes and be sacred once more. As a result of blacks sticking up for themselves, this gave motive to the Ku Klux Klan(KKK). The KKK was designed by mainly southerners to repress all African Americans. The KKK as in result would haze, assault, murder, rape, blackmail, tar/feather, and public harassment. Often the klan would try to intimidate powerful black politicians, businessmen, etc so they could give up their power to racist whites.

Over a long period of time, the South eventually got what it wanted again. The South wanted to revert to their old ways, with more control and power. The South was able to subdue African Americans out of power like in congress and voting by threatening them at the polls so they could not vote for non-KKK members. 

Throughout this time African Americans took advantage of every opportunity given. Blacks did not wait for the KKK to attack them, they acted swiftly and accordingly. They were able to open churches, businesses, farms, stores, etc. A huge stepping stone for African Americans was the opening of colleges eventually. This rise led to many great advancements in the future. This led to the foundation of concepts like HBCUs, UNCF, and NAACP. These three organizations are covered earlier in my blogs as well for further information click this.