Essay Service Examples Social Issues Jim Crow Laws
Jim Crow Laws: Why Reconstruction Was a Failure or not a Failure
Topics: Jim Crow Laws
After slavery ended the Reconstruction period begin, a period that many historians say was one of the most important times in U.S. history. This period of time is when freed African Americans began to be treated as humans, not like animals. But when Abe Lincoln was assassinated his vice president didn't have the same viewpoints and the Reconstruction period began to come to what most people think of this time period, a time period when the U.S. had to finally deal with it's innermost problem. Slaves. From the viewpoint of a freed African American, Reconstruction was a mediate failure because throughout the Reconstruction period the freedmen did receive aid from the U.S. Army and Amendments were made to help them but overall discrimination was still there and the KKK and the Jim Crow laws were made to treat the blacks as second class citizens.
The good thing about Reconstruction was during the beginning the freed slaves could depend on the U.S. for support and aid. The task of giving aid and protecting African Americans was given to the Bureau of Freedman. "All of the officers of the bureau were directed to investigate these difficulties between the two classes, [and] to settle them…. As much as possible, to punish light offences by fines, and to report more serious cases of crime to the military authorities." This shows that the Blacks could depend on the U.S. for protection and that the U.S. was working to improve the community. Another way the government provided help was actually coming to plantations and explaining rules. From the documents of the Freedmen's Bureau, they state, "Our Officers have been of great help in this matter. They have visited plantations to explain the difference between slave and free labor. They have also explained how contracts work." This shows that there willing to get their hands dirty and make change happen.
After the change of the President all aid that was being given stopped. There was no longer protection and the Whites could do whatever they wanted. A hate group called the KKK rose to power and began to terrorize blacks with threats and rules. Their goal was to scare blacks and to cancel out their votes during elections and if black didn't follow what the KKK said to do, their life was at stake. The government interviewed a KKK member and they said, "My opinion is that the purpose was to break down the Reconstruction acts; that they were dissatisfied with negro suffrage and the reconstruction [sic] measures and everybody that was in favor of them." This explains the goal of the KKK and that their intentions were harmful. Late in the document, it is shown that they are fulfilling their goal and harm is being done. "Well, in my section of the country, the colored people are afraid now and have been for some time, to turn out at an election. They are afraid to say much, or to have anything to do with public affairs." Now that the blacks have a say in who is voted in for the government the KKK don't like this and are not letting blacks vote. Overall the KKK was created to degrade the Blacks and to not let them have the rights of a first-class citizen.
Another thing that the Whites did to separate themselves from Blacks was, they created Jim Crow laws. Unlike the KKK the Jim Crow laws were approved by the government and as long the blacks had something similar to the whites the government was fine. "Jim Crow was more than a series of rigid anti-black laws. It was a way of life. Under Jim Crow, African Americans were relegated to the status of second-class citizens. Jim Crow represented the legitimization of anti-black racism." This definition sums up the Jim Crow laws, but the Jim Crow laws even effected who blacks could play checkers with or how to have a conversation with a white person. So the Jim Crow laws were another way to keep segragation and if these rules weren't followed like the KKK rules Blacks could be killed. So because the government didn't care about the amendments the whites were able to create these rules
Overall from the view of a Freedman reconstruction was great in the beginning because the government was participating in making life for a former slave better. The government's acts include creating amendments, giving aid and protection, schools being created, and jobs in the government being open to blacks. But as soon as Abraham Lincoln died everything that was happening stopped. The Blacks became vulnerable to attacks of the whites, rules could be created and the Blacks didn't have a choice of following these rules. To conclude, the Reconstruction period was a failure because at the end of it the same problem was still there. The only thing that changed was that Blacks weren't slaves.
Jim Crow Laws: Why Reconstruction Was a Failure or not a Failure. (2022, March 17). Edubirdie. Retrieved February 1, 2023, from https://edubirdie.com/examples/jim-crow-laws-why-reconstruction-was-a-failure-or-not-a-failure/
"Jim Crow Laws: Why Reconstruction Was a Failure or not a Failure." Edubirdie, 17 Mar. 2022, edubirdie.com/examples/jim-crow-laws-why-reconstruction-was-a-failure-or-not-a-failure/
Jim Crow Laws: Why Reconstruction Was a Failure or not a Failure. [online]. Available at: <https://edubirdie.com/examples/jim-crow-laws-why-reconstruction-was-a-failure-or-not-a-failure/> [Accessed 1 Feb. 2023].
Jim Crow Laws: Why Reconstruction Was a Failure or not a Failure [Internet]. Edubirdie. 2022 Mar 17 [cited 2023 Feb 1]. Available from: https://edubirdie.com/examples/jim-crow-laws-why-reconstruction-was-a-failure-or-not-a-failure/
Gender Inequality/Gender Discrimination Essays Discrimination Essays Animal Cruelty Essays Animal Testing Essays Animal Abuse Essays
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (13) Guernica (5) Shirley Jackson (7) Cat (7) My Sister's Keeper (10)
The Meaning And Peculiarities Of Jim Crow Laws
Jim Crow Laws
The Jim Crow Laws had a lifelong impact for African-Americans and other races as it would change the history of the nation and its people. The Jim Crow Laws was a time of white dominance in the South as whites had many rights while other...
The Importance And Value Of Jim Crow Museum Of Racist Memorabilia
Race is socially constructed; it exists nowhere but in the minds of the people. Race is an idea created in the minds of the people, repeated through different forms of presentation, then consciously and subconsciously accepted by the people (Jimenez, 2019). In full knowledge of...
The Problem Of Racism In Jim Crow Laws
When one talks about racism, most of our opinions are based on what happens in America; from 400 years ago until now, we find ourselves believing that racism in America has improved greatly. And we have improved, compared to the times before and after the...
Main Ideas And Topics In The Book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration In The Age Of Colorblindness
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness is a book that was authored by Michelle Alexander. The author's argument in this book is that overcrowding that is experienced in America's prisons is as a result of latent racism in America's criminal...
The Segregation In Jim Crow Laws
More than 4 million slaves were living in the United States in 1860 (Muldoon, 2014). These slaves were being worked to death, day and night, under the forcful white Americans. When the Afircan Americans first arrived in 1609, the white colonists thought they were less...
Jim Crow Laws: The Rules of a New System
Introduction/thesis statement The United States has gone through major demographic transformations over the past hundred years, one of which is its racial and ethnic composition. Sociologists theorize that racial and ethnic diversity continues to be an important feature in American society to date. As racial...
Betye Saar's The Weight of Color Requires Americans and Jim Crow Laws: Analytical Essay
When art discussion comes up there is always the question posed of subjectivity and if you can take a work out of its context. We know when looking at Betye Saar's work that this is not possible. Her works are largely based on her personal...
Jim Crow Laws: How did Slavery Become Much More Than Economics
Slavery, or the brutal practice of human bondage, was practiced predominantly by white landowners in the Southern United States throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. People were kidnapped from Africa and forced to work as indentured servants at plantations for the production of crops like...
The Prison Industrial Complex and the New Jim Crow: Analytical Essay
The Prison Industrial Complex is seen as the new Jim Crow. Jim Crow laws started as early as 1865, after the slaves were freed due to the thirteenth amendment, which freed about four million people from slavery. The laws around slaves, how, when, and where...