African Americans in America: The Fight
Name
HIS204: American History Since 1865
Dr. Kirk Strawbridge
30 Sep 13

African Americans have struggled with freedom before America was even a country. Freedom is something that Americans today take for granted. We look at third world countries that continue to exercise discrimination and segregation and America looks down on them. American’s fight wars to protect those discriminated against in other countries. We are almost numb to the fact that we, as Americans, were one of these countries. Some may even feel that these ignorant ideologies still exist today. No one wants to look o the past when this country was not acting like the America we try to project
Congress opposed the Black Codes because the South had created and morphed slavery into something else (Bowles, 2011). Fear of African Americans taking control over the South was a reality. The Reconstruction Era seemed very promising but without the backing of the country, it was doomed to end. The Southern States found ways to limit the freedoms of the freed slaves. Sharecropping was used to maintain control over African Americans and ensure the crops of the previous slave owners owned. Ex-slaves worked a small portion of a field in return for they would have to pay off their debt to gain ownership of the area they lived. This turned disastrous when the advances were given and the ex-slaves could not pay off their debts (Bowles, 2011). They were now slaves to their debt.
The African Americans in the South now had the right to vote and in many places, African Americans were the majority. The work industry was also affected by the amount of ex-slaves that no longer had work. Many went to town in order to find work. Violence broke out because of the fear that the ex-slaves would get all the available work. This sparked up groups like the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). The KKK was a racially motivated group that used violence to prevent equal rights for minorities, manly African Americans (Reconstruction 1865-1877). It seemed the Reconstruction had met its end with the Compromise of 1877. The North withdrew from the South who had maintained