The Civil War was the darkest and bloodiest period in American history with 620,000 lives lost. After it’s end America needed a period of rebuilding, Reconstruction. Reconstruction lasted throughout the U.S. from 1865 to 1877. Who, the North or South, put an end to America’s reassembly in 1877? The South killed Reconstruction through violent, political, and social conflicts. Hate crimes ran rampant in the South during the Reconstruction Era. The amount of violence was so extreme it was even acknowledged by northern newspapers (Doc. C). According to Tourgee’s letter, John W. Stephens was stabbed five or six times and hung for all to see in a North Carolina Grand Jury room (Doc. A). Brutality like Stephen’s murder was not a rarity in the post-Civil
