Reconstruction: America After the Civil War

        Right after the war ended, white southern legislatures introduced black codes that restricted blacks the ability to buy or rent land. These attempts to compel former slaves to work on plantations led congressional Republicans to seize President Andrew Johnson's control of reconstruction. They refused giving their congressional seats to members of the former confederate states. They worked to pass the 1866 Civil Rights Act and draft the 14th Amendment. This would expand citizenship rights to African Americans. Also, to give equal protection to all. In my opinion, this is the most important thing to know about the reconstruction.

        In 1870, the 15th Amendment granted black men voting rights. In each former confederate state except Virginia, the freedmen, in coalition with carpetbaggers and southern white Republicans known as scalawags, briefly gained control. The reconstruction governments developed democratic state constitutions. They expanded the rights of women, provided debt relief, and set up the first state funded schools in the south. Sadly, the southern Republican party's internal tensions, white terror, and northern apathy enabled white southern Democrats, known as redeemers, tried so hard to return to power. Former slaves and many small white farmers were stuck in a new system of economic exploitation. This was known as sharecropping, during reconstruction.

RECONSTRUCTION: AMERICA AFTER THE CIVIL WAR | PBS

Sources: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiXxQpBLMuk&feature=emb_logo

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