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Was Reconstruction A Failure Or Success

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The Reconstruction was a period of rebuilding relationships between the North and the South in the U.S. It was a significant period for ex-slaves (freedpeople) to seek a better life in the U.S. and one of the significant eras in the U.S. history that historians have been debating. After the end of the Civil War, about four million ex-slaves gained their freedom from the institution of slavery. But most ex-slaves struggled with the meaning of inequality and freedom during the Reconstruction. Historians have been debating about the evaluation of the Reconstruction. Was it considered a failure or success? From the view of racial inequality between white and black races, working conditions and the emancipation in the southern states. All historians …show more content…

However, Holt (some historians) considered that we shouldn't distinguish these two as separate events. Holt ,wrote about individual's experiences of each generations. Frederick Douglass was one of the former slaves who became a powerful African American abolitionist in the 19th century. He experienced both the position of a slave and a former slave. He was one of the enslaved people, but he was unique in that he learned reading and writing from his slaveowner's wife despite banning to teach reading and writing. This ability to read and write contributed in shaping his personality and accumulation of knowledge. He tried to escape from his master two times before, but failed. Finally, he successfully escaped to New York and secured his freedom. His experience was reasonable to know and understand different perspective from other former slaves. His contributions as an abolitionist to fight for an equality on behalf of African Americans and women's right inspired other's to fight for their freedom. He fought against his fate of bondage despite he was born as a slave. Before the Civil War started, he had already started his career as an abolitionist. Douglass worked towards improved race conditions and women's issues. During the Civil War, he argued that slaves should have the right to fight for their freedom. The emancipation and suffrage of freedpeople were his concerns to solve during the Reconstruction Era. Douglass was still actively fighting for the equality of African Americans and women despite the emergence of white supremacist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan. (His courage contributed to find solutions ("moral transformation"5)for "slavish personality"6, which abolitionists faced a dilemma between slave and free political communities. ) Douglass declareda nation should reconstruct (recognize) itself into a new social and political order for

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