did reconstruction help blacks?

Question

we just finished reconstruction today in history. When i got home i started thinking, did it actually help blacks? So what your opinion. like out come wise, case i don't think it did all to much.

Answer 1

i'm going to take it that you're serious and not just tweaking an answer from us for homework so here it goes. reconstruction helped no one! oh if lincoln was still alive and the south wasn't punished, then maybe it could've aided all but not only didn't it help the freed slaves but helped usher in restrictions for the freed slaves, created very bad feelings about the north (that, by the way, still exist today), the north's torrid feelings about the south and the wish to dominate it in very unhealthy ways. oh it was so poorly handled that reactions of such haven't been adequately settled well into the 21st century. the burn and scour policy of the north towards the south went on unchecked well after the civil war. we in the north are still considered 'carpetbaggers', which is not a kind 'title'. check it out! bad enough we had a civil war, had families fighting families but now the period that was suppose to help heal the country drove even a larger wedge between the north and south who's pain we're still feeling. bad - very bad!

Answer 2

To a certain extent. They could technically vote. However, many states required literacy tests and grandfather clauses (to vote, your grandparents, which meant the enslaved grandparents of free blacks, had to have been able to vote) and thus barred blacks from voting. The KKK also played a huge role in deterring blacks from voting. The only state that had any real rights for blacks was Louisiana. It was the only one with a black legislature. I don't think that any blacks held public office outside of their states.

Answer 3

i think the blacks have done really well. i know blacks who act better then other races. to be honest i would rather hang out with blacks then my own race. black people need to stop feeling any less then others. we are all the same in gods eyes, his rainbow. I'm white and have a daughter who is half black, i wouldn't take anything in the world for her. she is smart and a straight A student. oh and she beautiful and so is her spirit. good bless.

Answer 4

The government didn't care about blacks.... That's why brave men and women such as Dr. King and Rosa Parks had to fight the government 100 years later.

Answer 5

I may agree with the "not much", though I think it worth considering carefully what WAS accomplished, as well as what was ATTEMPTED, to try to get a fair perspective. (Also, below I will respond to those who claim Reconstruction --by which they target "RADICAL Reconstruction"-- caused a lot of damage that would not have happened. I don't believe that for a moment!)

Reconstruction DID help blacks in the short run. Unfortunately, many (though not all) of the gains were lost when it ended.

During Reconstruction many schools were built to provide education to former slaves. (This was largely done by those falsely maligned "carpetbaggers" -- MOST of whom truly came to help, and did, amidst much local opposition. Only a handful --as sadly, always happens-- were corrupt and seeking just to line their own pockets.)

A number of blacks gained and exploited new opportunities, including that of elective office. . in which they by and large did quite an admirable job. (This too is contrary to the stereotypes.) And large numbers voted, despite corrupt and violent tactics (threats and lynchings, ballot stuffing) that sought to overcome their effect, and to a large extent later did.

Again, a lot of these doors began to close in the 1870s (and esp later under Jim Crow laws). But experience and pride gained from these things, once enjoyed, continued to benefit and motivate many in the black community.

The eventual failure of Reconstruction is sad, and not a great tribute to the nation. Yet we can note at least this -- what was attempted was unprecedented... to bring an ENORMOUS population of the recently enslaved and oppressed (and against whom many held much fear and prejudice) into full political and economic participation, with protected rights. Look at other societies of the age (or any age) -- they freed slaves of serfs... and basically left them to fend for themselves.

It's remarkable that such a thing was even contemplated, much less attempted. And while the failure did much damage, it is likely that all would have been much WORSE, had the nation followed 'the usual pattern'.

So I'd have to say, even in light of the great failure, blacks were helped by Reconstruction, even in the long run. What HURT them was not Reconstruction, but "redemption"... with the Southern white elite "returning" to power (and that would have happened, probably with worse consequences, it Radical Reconstruction had NOT been attempted).

________________

Some answers to critics of "Radical Reconstruction"

Now there IS a claim that it hurt blacks because the powerful Radical Republicans were so vindictive, so intent on "punishing" the South, that they created a backlash amongst Southern whites, and blacks paid the price of that. Oh, if only they had shared the desires of Lincoln (and perhaps Johnson) for a kindler, gentler reconstruction!

Horse droppings!

Sorry, but that view was manufactured by a group of Southern whites (and later accepted by Northern whites, partly because it allowed them to assuage some of their guilt without facing their OWN racism). You may still hear it, and see it in popular writings. But if you follow the trends of Civil War and Reconstruction scholarship over the last century you'll find that very few accept such a view anymore... and the documentary evidence AGAINST it is enormous. Note that:

a) this view has things all out of ORDER. The suppression of blacks did NOT begin in reaction to Radical Reconstruction. It began under JOHNSON'S plan in 1865. He required (as Lincoln would have) that the returning states accept the 13th amendment, but NARROWLY interpreted (NOT the direction Lincoln had been moving in HIS writings and speeches) so that heavy restrictions and limitations of rights were allowed.

Seeing this, Southern states immediately began to pass harsh "black codes", restricting the movements and economic options of blacks almost as severely as earlier slave codes.

Note that Congress was not even in session from Lincoln's assassination till December 1865 when all this was happening!! And the "Radicals" were still a minority till after the elections of 1866, where they gained as a backlash against JOHNSON's refusal to do anything when the South returned former Confederate officials to Congress and thumbed their nose at concerns about protections for the newly freed slaves.

b) Radical Reconstruction was actually QUITE brief, only a few years in most of the South (By 1876 it existed in THREE states, and there quite limited, mostly nominal.)

c) Radical Reconstruction was in NO way as harsh or punitive as it is portrayed. Troops were few and deployed only in a few key places, mainly to protect the state governments or in response to riots... though President Grant was VERY hesitant about using them or increasing their number (in part because many in the North hated the idea of anything like an "occupation", and weren't keen on renewed military conflict, esp. against whites [yes, racism was one factor]).

The most extreme proposals -- such as Thaddeus Stevens push to confiscate plantations of the wealthiest to give 40-acre plots to freed slaves-- failed to pass (and even these were not JUST punitive... they were MORE concerned with establishing freedmen ECONOMICALLY)

d) As noted earlier, the Reconstruction governments-- with Northerners ("carpetbaggers"), Southern pro-Unionists ("scalawags", treated as turncoats by Confederates, though MOST had ALWAYS been pro-Union, anti-secession) and free blacks -- were NOT as corrupt as claimed, not even as corrupt as OTHER state governments of the period! (Recent historians have crunched the numbers on these things.) Of course, taxes and debts WERE high... but that was when the South, as a result of the war, was an economic mess requiring a LOT of rebuilding

Reconstruction ITSELF failed (fell apart) because of determined Southern opposition and crumbling Northern political support for the effort. The latter was partly for reasons mentioned above, but ALSO because after the Panic of 1873 led into a depression, people feared the COST.

(Final efforts really fell apart in 1875, and plans to remove the last troops were underway by the election of 1876. By the way, this is one reason the story about Hayes supposedly agreeing to remove troops to gain Southern Congressional votes to 'make him President' --in some supposed back room "Compromise"-- is BOGUS.)

Answer 6

no

Answer 7

no