Reconstruction Dbq

Some believe it is safe to say that the Reconstruction era was a complete failure. It fell short of achieving it’s goals and was counterproductive. In many ways it created a worse environment for the African American society, they were better of in way prior to the civil war. Many people argue that the Reconstruction era was successful because of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments. The thirteenth amendment “ended” slavery but only in name. Nearly 300 years of servitude created a mindset that African Americans were less than people. In the minds of white men they were property. Slavery continued in America for years after the amendment passed. The fourteenth and fifteenth amendment supposedly secured the rights of slaves

They were a lower class with separate schools, water fountains, restaurants, and seating on public transportation. They faced varies forms of oppression and race-inspired violence. Could you imagine the fear they felt being beaten for the color of their skin and origin. A trait they cannot control. In 1954 the United States Supreme Court passed the “separate but equal” doctrine. That was the basis of state sanctioned discrimination and segregation. Civil rights activists started non-violent protest because they wanted to be treated equal not just have the title.

Reconstruction made political authority unclear, what they said they were doing and what they were doing were not equivalent. It confused the issue of equality. The authority of the federal government was frequently called into question by southern states who manipulated, challenged and side-stepped as well as violently resisting the capitol and
United States Constitution. The reconstruction era adopted political confusion and fighting. Carpetbaggers and scalawags reaped the spoils of corrupt office holding and cooperated with new governments often for personal gain. Freedmen were not able to properly exercise the political power they had been thrown

In the decades after the Civil War the government did little to none to rebuild the southern infrastructure. The south remained embedded in it’s traditional agricultural economy. This was anything but progressive. The region was locked into a pattern of economic backwardness and failure. Reconstruction failed to bring any land reform of importance to the South this left African Americans in an inherently unequal state with no opportunities to meet their basic human needs. They were unable to get ahead in life or move on from their enslaved past. African Americans had to remain dependent on their former owners. Sharecropping became the legal form of slavery. It kept African Americans tied to the land they worked which was owned by rich white