The twelve-year time period after the Civil War, also known as the Reconstruction, was considered by many people to be a failure. Although the two main goals of the reconstruction, giving blacks civil rights, and re-uniting the Confederate and Union states, were met, they weren't stretched out to completion, and at the end, left blacks worse off than they were beforehand.
During the Reconstruction, northerners finally helped the blacks get their civil rights. Due to the continuous pushing of the Radical Republicans, many efforts were made to help the newly freed slaves survive and live as free individuals. The Freedmen's Bureau, which was promoted by general O.O. Howard, was created in 1865 to help blacks land on their feet, and acquire some property and receive some education. Many slaves got involved in the sharecropping business. Also, helping in the civil rights of the slaves, were the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, which were passed in order to free the slaves, give them legal citizenship, and to grant black males the right to vote.
English: President Andrew Johnson.
Ku Klux Klan members and a burning cross, Denver, ...
Johnson_AncestorsThe amendments helped former slaves become accustomed with their new positions in society. The Radical Republicans, a strong group in the United States, were fighting for the freed slaves and their rights. However, even with these freedoms, many things still plagued the blacks. After the amendments were passed, and the freedoms granted, many whites stopped caring about what happened to the newly independent blacks. The majority of the black population was uneducated, and had not been living in freedom, so they weren't able to get jobs, and didn't know how to go about living independently and making enough money to live. Also, even though blacks were now capable of getting some jobs, they still couldn't get the highly paid jobs that whites had, like doctors, or...