Reconstruction DBQ

America tried to do the unbelievable during Reconstruction; they tried to abolish slavery altogether. This process was a complete failure and it only made southerners hate African Americans even more. The purpose of Reconstruction was to reunite the Southern states with the North and make America whole again. After and during Reconstruction, Africans were treated very poorly. As fellow Americans, the government was supposed to treat everyone with equality, however, Africans still were not being treated like humans. Organizations were created against the African culture and would follow them around and tease and taunt them. There were laws created against African Americans that put limits on what they could and could not do. One of the last …show more content…
Reconstruction was not created to mark the beginning of segregation, unfortunately, it did. Black Codes were laws that were created throughout Southern states, cities and the government passed them. The Black Codes restricted the rights that were given to Africans during Reconstruction. In Louisiana, Black Codes were passed immediately. Some of the laws stated that “No public meetings of negroes or freedmen shall be allowed within the town”(Doc D). Other codes stated that a negro may not own or rent a house, they may only be permitted into town if they had a special note from their masters, and no negro would be allowed to carry firearms or any weapons. Similar to the Black Codes, Southern states also passed a series of laws called the Jim Crow Laws. The Jim Crow Laws were passed to make sure that all blacks were segregated from whites. When it came to nurses in Alabama, no white nurse was to tend to aa black male, no matter what the problem was. Also in Alabama, no negro was to attend the same restaurant, and if they did, there were to be no contact with the opposite race. In Georgia only white families were allowed to go to public parks. Intermarriage was strictly prohibited in Maryland, it was wrong to even think about it. Teaching in New Mexico required negroes to be separated into one room and whites into another (Doc K). The creation of these laws made it …show more content…
The fifteenth amendment states that all men of all races shall not be discriminated against and shall have the right to vote. The South however, thought differently. The cartoon, The American Dream, is a perfect example as to why the fifteenth amendment was a failure. The cartoon is a gameboard and it shows how whites had the right of way with no obstacles in the way, while Africans, were being stopped 24/7 (Doc N). One of the big issues that caused a lot of blacks to excluded themselves from voting was infact the KKK. The KKK would wait right outside of the voting booths and if the black man did not vote how the KKK wanted him to he would likely be beaten to death. Taxes were put onto voting, but the catch was that only Africans were required to pay. Since Reconstruction was fresh out of the Civil War and slavery had just ended, Africans really had no money to pay the small fines of two dollars. One last thing that made it almost impossible for Africans to vote were Literary Test. These test were given out to only Africans who wanted to vote. On the test were questions that were impossible for a former slave to answer considering the fact he never received an proper, if any at all, education. The test would be given by a white person who could lie and say time was up or that the negro had gotten an answer wrong, if just one