After the American Civil War had ended, the South was in social, political, and economic disorder. Reconstruction was definately in need. As a result, after the Civil War, in 1865, the Congress established the Freedmen's Bureau, as an effort to assist former slaves . It was a Bureau of Refugees, freedmen, and abandoned lands. The Freedmen's Bureau provided various amounts of things such as food, medical care, helped with resettlement, and it established schools. There were over 1,000 schools built, teacher-training institutes were created and several black colleges were founded with the financial help of the bureau. On January 16, 1865, there was an act that gave freed slaves 400,000 acres of abandoned rice land on Georgia’s Sea Islands and on the coast of South Carolina. The land was divided into forty-acre plots. Later the army was ordered to provide mules to the freedmen, also known as “forty acres and a mule.” However, this order did not last long after the assassination of President Lincoln. The vice president, President Andrew Johnson, had took over.
Later on in 1865, while the freedom of the Southern blacks was settling in, there were several Southern states that had passed legislation, creating Black Codes. The Black Code generally restricted the blacks right to own property. It controlled where they were allowed to live, established a curfew, and forced them to work as agricultural laborers or as domestics. A year later, the Civil Rights Act of 1866 was established, quickly eliminatiing the Black Codes. The Civil Right Act, was what the black people hoped for. The act gave the blacks the rights and privelages of full citizenship.
Also, during the reconstruction there was a battle for political power. President Andrew Johnson, was a very horrible president. He was very unsupportive of the Freedman's Bureau, but thought that there should be a southern white rule over local government. He supported that idea strongly, but abolitionists and Republican Congressional members put a stop to it immediately.In 1867, the Reconstruction Act eliminated the white controlled governments. Now with the Reconstruction Act in action, it gave the blacks the freedom to participate in the political process.
Though the Freedmen's Bureau had many successes, it was not succesful for everything. There were several overriding factors. Due to these couple factors such as inadequate funds, inefficiency, and corruption, in 1870 the organization had to come to an end. After all the progression towards equality, everything soon came to an end. All of the hardships, and successful effort of Reconstruction had vanished. By 1877 blacks were again relegated to second-class citizenship. The Southern Democrats had retaken control.
By the Southern Democrats regaining power, I know things for blacks had to only get harder. I can't even imagine how they were feeling at the time. Everything they had worked for and gained, seemed so worthless, and useless. The Reconstruction of the Civil War had built happiness and hope for thousands of people. How could all that success be driven away? All of this only gave blacks more strength to continute to fight for their equality. No one should ever give up in what they deserve."You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it."-Margaret Thatcher.
