Presidential Reconstruction Essay

Register to read the introduction… New political forces in the South gave way for new changes. During reconstruction, African Americans made huge political gains. They voted in large numbers and were also elected to political office. African Americans were elected as sheriffs, mayors, legislators, Congressmen, and Senators. Even thought their participation was significant, it was exaggerated by white southerners angry at the Black Republicans governments. Reconstruction governments built public schools for both black and white children. They also rebuilt and added more railroads, telegraph lines, bridges, and railroads. These costly efforts led to tax increases that made the southern whites more angry, which was why the Ku Klux Klan was created. By the mid 1870's, the Republicans were …show more content…
Southern states denied African Americans from voting through voting restrictions such as the poll tax, grandfather clause, and the literacy test. Jim Crow Laws separated blacks and whites in restaurants, schools, theaters, railroads, hospitals, and all other public places. The Jim Crow Laws were clearly passed to ensure that black people could not dot eh same things as white people. Such laws encouraged and promoted racial segregation and varied from district to district. Some required black people to drink at separate fountains and use separate bathrooms than white people. Others required black people to give up seats on public buses if a white person wanted their sear, and still others prohibited black people from attending the same schools as white people African Americans continued to be looked at as “bad”or not “equal” as the white Americans. They were still victims of violence and intimidation. In the 1960's, with the Civil Rights movement, the African Americans were granted full protection of the 14th and 15th