Reconstruction
First and Second Reconstructions The First and Second Reconstructions held out the great promise of rectifying racial injustices in America. The First Reconstruction, emerging out of the chaos of the Civil War had as its goals equality for Blacks in voting, politics, and use of public facilities. The Second Reconstruction emerging out of the booming economy of the 1950's, had as its goals, integration, the end of Jim Crow and the more amorphous goal of making America a biracial democracy where, "the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave holders will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood." Even though both movements, were borne of high hopes they failed in bringing about their goals. Born in hope, they died in despair, as both movements saw many of their gains washed away. I propose to examine why they failed in realizing their goals. My thesis is that failure to incorporate economic justice for Blacks in both movements led to the failure of the !First and Second Reconstruction. The First Reconstruction came after the Civil War and lasted till 1877. The political, social, and economic conditions after the Civil War defined the goals of the First Reconstruction. At this time the Congress was divided
This has caused rising rates of unemployment, economic desperation, and jobs predominantly in the low-wage sector. "31 The Freedmen's Bureau missed a great opportunity; had its mission been broadened, its funding increased, and its power been extended, it could have educated the Black population and guaranteed some type of land reform in the South. "28 When the bill was !introduced in Congress it was resoundingly defeated by a majority of Republicans. And Native Americans, like Afro-Americans, have been predominately powerless economically and politically. The leaders of the movement were from the Southern middle-class Blacks; who were either college students, teachers, preachers, or lawyers. And as in the First Reconstruction, when those political alliances did not serve the needs of the whites in power, Blacks were abandoned and their political and social goals wiped out. Newly emancipated slaves wandered the South after having left their former masters, and the White population was spiritually devastated, uneasy about what lay ahead. There had been riots in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963, yet these riots neither spread nor crippled the movement. And when an alliance with Blacks no longer served the interests of the whites they were easily abandoned. Few Blacks held elective offices in relation to their percentage of the South's population. Only one newspaper endorsed it and that was the French paper La Temps which said, "There cannot be real emancipation for men who do no possess at least a small portion of soil. Stokely Carmichael, a poor immigrant from Trinidad; Eldridge Cleaver, the son of a Texas carpenter, and went to jail for rape44; Huey Newton, before becoming a political leader, was a hustler. This arrangement continued the poverty and oppression of Blacks in the South. This poverty cycle among lower-class Blacks remains after vestiges of legal Jim Crow have disappeared.
Common topics in this essay:
Rights Movement,
Southern Democrats,
Jim Crow,
Freedmen's Bureau,
Civil Rights,
Radical Republicans,
Blacks Black,
Civil War,
Louisiana Black,
Thaddeus Stevens,
civil rights,
civil rights movement,
rights movement,
jim crow,
southern democrats,
political rights,
former slaves,
freedmen's bureau,
radical republicans,
civil war,
black power,
de facto segregation,
william julius wilson,
strange career jim,
career jim crow,
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Acceptance Essays
