Blog #10 -- The deal with Reconstruction?

"The Reconstruction" was a plan created for the south after the Civil War (more specifically, 1865-1877), meant to restore the southern United States. Abraham Lincoln created this plan and began to enforce it, but was assassinated before he could finish it. Naturally, the vice president Andrew Johnson took his place. However, Andrew Johnson wasn't too hot on the idea of giving blacks the complete right to be citizens, so he anulled a bill that would've given blacks the same rights which wouldn't actually be enforced until a century later. Also, a loophole was created, by the name of "separate but equal," meaning there was segregation but blacks were far from being "fair citizens." They weren't allowed to eat in the same places as whites, own land, vote, or even enter some towns without permission.

This plan went well because, even though blacks weren't given the same rights as whites, they were given a lot more opposed to when they were slaves.

The things that went badly with this plan were, clearly, on Andrew Johnson's part. If he hadn't anulled the bill that would've given everyone the same rights, then we wouldn't have had to deal with 100 more years of segregation and white supremacy. Also, from these drastic changes came white supremacy groups, such as the KKK, red shirts and white league. These groups went as far as to kill massive groups of people at a time that disagreed with them. Some of these groups, like the infamous KKK, are still active today.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USASreconstruction.htm