The American Experience from 1865 to 1945 Assignment - 1

The American Experience from 1865 to 1945 - Assignment Example With the deprived agriculture in the South, the industrial North became powerful and dominate both politically and economically. Although the North played a vital role in slave freedom, the problem came in the readjustment of vanquished South and victorious North politically and economically. Reconstruction process which focused in states returned in full status passed in four stages such as the appointment of Andrew Johnson as president, Freedmen Bureau which was active in helping refugees, setting employment contract of freedmen. Thirdly, came Radical or Black Reconstruction whereby Republic coalition governed the states under President Ulysses Grant and in fourth stage Redeemer won political control in most states which made all federal troops withdraw, hence the collapse of Republican state governments. "Congressional Radicals strongly disagreed with Andrew Johnson over securing the place of African-Americans in American society." (J.W. Davidson, W.E. Gienapp, C.L. Heyrman, M.H. Lytle and M. B. Stoff, Nation of Nations, Vol I, Chapter 17, 2001). Moderate Republicans who fought for black rights were overpowered by Presidential vote in alliance with radicals.Reconstruction came to an end in 1868 after Rutherford B. Hayes elected as President who withdrew all federal troops which led to Southern states. Black Americans struggle did not end with the collapse of reconstruction, racism and white resistance took charge which led to the loss of land for some of Black American to white farmers. The vivid example is in 1878 when Benjamin Montgomery the first ex-slave to purchase land lost it to Jefferson Davis. White Southerners designed laws to keep blacks uneducated, propertyless but agricultural laboring class. Racism became rampant whereas in Jim Crow's legal codes segregate blacks from whites. The code forbade blacks from mingling with whites; furthermore, due to racism blacks could not compete and secure most jobs. The problem was aggravated by the lack of education and skills for most black Americans and no rights to the legal system. The black American struggle had undergone several obstacles and with the collapse of reconstruction, the philosophy of protecting black rights, subjected them into more racial segregations. Racial segregation did not recede, and despite the fact that male blacks were granted voting freedom, women were not allowed to do so. Blacks now were not permitted to board third class in the trains which were the main transportation after the war. Despite the good documentation of black struggle history in Nation and Nations book, such events were not mentioned. Supreme Courts passed laws that made blacks to have separate accommodations and not mingle with whites accommodations and public schools for blacks and whites.