The Civil War and Reconstruction periods

African Americans : Reconstruction And Beyond

There are a great many myths and misunderstandings about the Civil War and the Radical Reconstruction Era . While most are familiar with these tumultuous times in American History , there are many facts that people are not familiar . Furthermore , the lack of familiarity is exacerbated when the lack of familiarity revolves around the specifics of the abolishment of slavery and , more specifically , the new world African-Americans found themselves in the five decades after the war ended , a world that had more than a few parallels to the current

br situation with Mexican immigrants in America today

In 1865 , immediately after the Civil War ended and the Reconstruction Era was established , the Bureau of Refugees , Freedmen , and Abandoned Lands was formed as a means of helping the newly freed slaves transition into a new life . This bureau was among the first government agencies designed to establish a federally back social programs . These social programs included health care , food distribution and public schooling Unfortunately , this bureau did not remain funded for longer than eight years and ended up being dissolved . It is important to note that the bureau existed at a time when government backed institutions were scarce and it offered a positive method of transitioning the newly freed African-Americans into American society by making some minor reparation for prior injustices

Reconstruction , however , was hardly a social fantasyland in the south as one of the most ominous presences to emerge from the Reconstruction era was the rise of the Ku Klux Klan . Playing to the fears of the white establishment , the Klan was formed as a way of preserving ' the old ways by subjugating blacks by means of a protracted , violent campaign of terror . To call the Klan terrorists , however , is to marginalize what the organization truly was . The KKK was not a fringe radical group . It was a powerful political force that amassed a general membership in excess of one million dues paying members and countless more millions in sympathizers . In fact , many elected officials were Klansmen and they played a major factor in developing the segregation system that was a component of the fabric of life in the south . To compound this situation facing African-Americans even further , in the early 1900 's , KKK sympathizer Woodrow Wilson was elected to the office of the President The government that once freed the slaves was now looking to stifle and control those who were freed from one for of oppression and then transferred to another oppression

The south white oligarchy used its economic power to organize the

Ku Klux Klan and other terrorist groups . Northern politicians began to

weigh the advantage of the political support of impoverished blacks

against the more stable situation of a South returned to white supremacy , accepting Republican dominance and business legislation . It was only a

matter of time before blacks would be reduced once again not

too far from slavery (Zinn

In other words , in to avoid another conflict , the North and the South...