Essay on Reconstruction

Document Type:Essay

Subject Area:History

Document 1

Also, slaves were given an opportunity to own their own properties and also get citizenship. The African Americans who were in power at that time kept pushing the state so as to declare independence to all Americans regardless of their color as they felt that people were all created the same. At last, white Democrats ended up giving the African Americans legal freedom that they had been looking for. 1 After this, another fight started which aimed at determining the political, legal together with social implications of given black Americans citizenship. The issue of racism has been of history in the United States and it is not likely to end anytime soon having persisted during reconstruction period when the states were in the process of seeking for equality.

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This was an indication that equality in southern states was not be achieved anytime soon. Between 1880 and 1890, white southerners acted above the law in terrorizing the black Americans. 3 Many African Americans were killed in this period and the number of lynching increased with the black Americans becoming the main target over that period. White Americans used extreme powers in the process of securing back their control over that region. More than five thousand black Americans were killed between the 1880s and 1950, with this happening against the view of the two authors of the reconstruction. But this was not the case. The resources in the region were seen as sources of the future prosperity of the region. Racial discrimination and lack of involvement of the black people in voting led the region to be controlled by the white people only and this meant that the African Americans had no say on the leadership of the region.

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The hopes of reshaping the region to resemble the northern region were not successful. Majority of the investors in this region were white people who ensured that racial status quo was maintained in the region and that black people had no say in the way that the region was administered. 6 This was the restoration of the Union. Despite that the war led to the end of the slave trade in the US, African Americans still remained second-class citizens. In addition to this, women were still struggling for participation in the public sector in the country. This was against what the two authors had proposed that at the end of the reconstruction period, there will be equal to all people regardless of race or gender.

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