Civil War Prejudice And Discrimination Essay

On February 1, 1865 the 13th amendment which abolished slavery was added to the United States Constitution. In April of the same year the Civil War ended and America began to recover from the war. While slavery had been abolished, freed slaves had a long road ahead of them. Prejudice and discrimination still had a major hold on society all throughout the United States. The federal government could have done much more than it did to help former slaves in the aftermath of the Civil War. “I feels and I knows dat de years after the war was worser than befo’. Befo’ the war blacks had a place to lie down at night and somewhere to eat when they got hungry in slavery time. Since them times many a black has had it tough to make a livin’. I know that …show more content…
These so called Black Codes also required blacks to sign labor contracts yearly and if they didn’t they were jailed and forced to work off the fines they had accrued while they were in jail. The codes also forbade blacks from working in any jobs other than what they had previously held as slaves. While congress passed the first Civil Rights Act, and the 14th and 15th amendments white southerners held steadfastly to their beliefs. When reconstruction started to wan there had been little improvement in their economic and social status. In 1877 the Jim Crow laws were enacted, under these laws blacks were treated as second class citizens. The Jim Crow laws laid out segregation clearly, blacks and whites social interactions were severely regulated. Perhaps the vilest thing that came as a result of the Jim Crow laws was a large increase in lynching. The greatest amount of lynchings occurred in the southern and border states. According to Dr. David Pilgrim, “Lynching was used as an intimidation tool to keep blacks, in this case the newly freed people, "in their places."” (What was Jim