Reconstruction’s Failure to Bring Social and Economic Equality

The Reconstruction Era lasted up to 1877 from the time just after the Civil War. The Reconstruction failed to bring about social and economic equality to the former slaves due to the southern whites’ resentful and bitter outlook on the matter, the Ku Klux Klan, and the Jim Crow laws. After the Civil War, the southern whites were extremely resentful and bitter. In 1865 the southern states began issuing “black codes,” which were laws made subsequent to the Civil War that had the effect of limiting the civil rights and civil liberties of blacks. This term tends to refer to the legislation passed by southern states to control the labor, migration, and other activities of newly freed slaves. When the slaves were freed, they still had trouble finding work due to the fact that the sour southerners would not hire the blacks for anything besides diminutive jobs dealing with labor. These codes simply reflected the south’s unwillingness to accept the blacks as equals. As a result, the codes continued a now legal discrimination between the races. Carpetbaggers were the given name to the northerners who moved down to the south with a desire to work on behalf of the newly emancipated slaves and with hopes of economic gain. Many in the south viewed the carpetbaggers as opportunists looking to exploit and profit from the region’s misfortunes. However, the carpetbaggers supported the Republicans and played a huge part in shaping the southern government during Reconstruction. The Ku Klux Klan was a white supremacist organization and gained interest when the Republicans challenged white supremacy in the south with the Reconstruction. The famed Confederate Calvary commander, Nathan Bedford Forest, is said to have provided leadership of the early Klan. While the secret society was founded in Tennessee, it was expanded very quickly throughout the southern states. The Klan terrorized blacks with beatings, burning of homes, whippings, and lynching. Congress eventually passed