Effects Of Black Reconstruction

The failure of Reconstruction was caused by the sudden shift to give equal political representation for Africans Americans when the society prior was solely based upon White's domination. As a result, it created a feeling of threat to the position of superiority and eventually lead to an engagement of extreme violence from the whites. Heather Richardson’s simulation of a scenario revolving around tax money in Lydon’s The Rebirth of a Nation conceived an idea “that… poor workers run a mock trying to take over the government and get the government to do things for them using white tax dollars or wealthy tax dollars,” directed a downward trend instead of an “upward direction that it was actually [wanted].” Whilst this had triggered the whites, …show more content…
Thus, there was an emergence of white terrorist groups and “vigilante organizations such as Red Shirts, the Regulators, the Knights of the White Camelia, and, above all, the Ku Klux Klan. [Especially, the Ku Klux Klan] “engaged in extreme violence, often against blacks who… had attained some ‘status in society’ through property holdings, labor or political activism, or general standing” ("Black Reconstruction"). One of the most notorious act from the group was on Easter Sunday of April 13, 1873, an act that was directed against blacks as “an effort to unset local black officeholders after a disputed local election. Over 105 blacks were killed in the violence.” The number of deaths was significantly high and it was caused by the issue of African Americans’ participation in the election. With brutal violence and injustice reasoning, it marked the Reconstruction era to be one of the most violent periods in history. Looking from the African Americans perspective, the period is simply a reenactment of slavery - beatings, whippings, and deaths are a normality. This era purpose was to restore the Union and enforce egalitarianism, however, it was enacted a reign of terror, defend white supremacy, and maintain a strict racial hierarchy. In addition, the feeling of racism and discrimination was still deeply entwined with the people’s beliefs such that the two …show more content…
Ferguson (1896) that upheld a doctrine of "separate but equal" for public facilities; as a result, it imposed a form of racial segregation as “equal” in the eyes of the whites was not defined as being the same but receiving a better treatment. The outcome of the case denied children of color to attend the same school as white children and in another sense, it denied children of color from receiving the best education due to a lack resources and money. Thus, for the African Americans to vote, states would required them to pass a ridiculous literacy test given the fact that most lack an education. For example, the Louisiana literacy test was a 30 questions exam that were "designed to put the applicant through mental contortions, [and] the test's questions are often confusingly worded. If some of them seem unanswerable, that effect was intentional. The (white) registrar would be the ultimate judge of whether an answer was correct" (Onion). The fact that the exam put the test takers through a mental torture and most African Americans was uneducated illustrated the unfairness the society emplaced for them. This became a restrain that limits the black people's freedom yet it is considered as constitutional. In another modality, the increment of events following the ending of Reconstruction denotes that racism was restored and the passing of the three guaranteed basic rights became