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Reconstruction Dbq

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Before the reconstruction era was the U.S civil war. During this time (as well as before), African Americans were treated as slaves and subject to extreme discrimination and inhumane treatment. One major point of this is that African American slaves had absolutely no rights, but this changed after the civil war ended in 1864 and the reconstruction era began. The reconstruction era as previously stated, began after the end of the civil war (so it began in 1865) and ended in 1877 with the Compromise of 1877 (when the remaining troops were removed from the South due to the Compromise of 1877, the reconstruction era was formally ended). During this period marked the time of rebuilding the United States. The primary focus was on rebuilding was …show more content…

This meant that a lot of people would have to find homes, jobs, and education. When the reconstruction era began, steps were taken to completely abolish slavery so that all states readmitted to the Union supported slavery any longer (so even more former slaves were in need of basic necessities). To help with this, Congress created the Freedman’s Bureau. The Freedman’s Bureau, established in 1865 (just one year after the civil war, and in the first year of reconstruction), was specifically designed to help the many former African American slaves in the South in the aftermath of the civil war. They helped them to find new homes, and helped them to find new jobs, as well as helping to provide education to the former slaves (for example, the Morehouse College was opened in 1867 to help former slaves become Protestant ministers and …show more content…

The second was the 14th Amendment (ratified in 1868), which gave African Americans their citizenship and this entitled them to all of the rights of a citizen. Finally, the third was the 15th Amendment (ratified in 1870), which gave African Americans suffrage (the right to vote). Each of these three helped give African Americans their civil rights by law, but there was still extreme discrimination (particularly by certain groups that expressed discrimination, often by violent

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