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Essay On The Effects Of Reconstruction On African Americans

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Reconstruction transformed African Americans lives and improved their lives while it was happening. The thirteenth amendment made it so that all African Americans were freed, but they didn’t always benefit from that. However, most southern states passed “Black Codes” that restricted the rights of African Americans. Though African Americans were granted rights, under the fourteenth amendment their rights were often violated. During Reconstruction, African Americans were better off than they had been before and better off than they would be in the years following Reconstruction. For the first time, African Americans were free, slavery was a thing of the past, and many African Americans hoped for a bright future. The thirteenth amendment prohibited all slavery and involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted. In Document D, it states, “There can be no doubt that the State has the authority to impose involuntary servitude as a punishment for crime.” Most southern states were being salty towards this amendment and were determined to …show more content…

In Document E it talks about voting when Charles Nordhoff says, “And it is far better for him that he should act under such influences than that his vote should be masses against the property and intelligence of the white people to achieve the purposes of unscrupulous demagogues.” Southern states imposed poll taxes, and literacy requirements. However the Freedman's conflict with Bureau and other organizations tried to help blacks even though their attempts came in conflict with opposite groups such as the Ku Klux Klan who terrorized African Americans. The Freedman’s Bureau was a government aid for freedmen that was established to help and protect newly freed slaves during the transition from a life of slavery to a life of

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