During Radical Reconstruction, which began in 1867, newly enfranchised blacks were able to gain a voice in government through representation for the first time in American history, winning election to governmental positions, southern state legislatures, and even to the U.S. Congress. In less than a decade, however, there would be a strong backlash against these changes from the South, in an attempt to reverse the changes wrought by Radical Reconstruction in a campaign of violence and terror that restored white supremacy in the South. Throughout this time period, the South regressed back to a state that was far more similar to how the country was before the civil war, before reconstruction had taken place. Clearly, though African Americans experienced great positive changes during reconstruction, the retaliation during the Jim Crow era washed away much of their progress, and so eventually their lives were brought back to near pre-civil war conditions, and the unwanted continuity of racism, prejudice, and…