a short history of reconstruction 1863 1877

Now they see its broad triumphs and also its long reach. Historians once portrayed the period as a failure and defined it narrowly as the years between 18.

And what they do know is often outdated or inaccurate. Ultimately, the unmet promises of Reconstruction led to the modern civil rights movement 100 years later.ĭespite the importance of Reconstruction, many Americans know very little about it.

African Americans - across America - faced steep obstacles as they attempted to claim their newly won rights. Central to this drama was the former Confederacy where social, economic, and political changes dramatically transformed the region and where major activities of and resistance to Reconstruction took place. The experience of Reconstruction, and the rebuilding of the Union following the Civil War, played out across America and resulted in changes that fundamentally altered the meaning of citizenship and the relationship between Federal and state governments. Congress also passed a series of Reconstruction Acts that divided the former Confederacy into five military districts and laid out requirements for re-admittance to the Union (except Tennessee). During the period, Congress passed three constitutional amendments that permanently abolished slavery, defined birthright citizenship and guaranteed due process and equal protection under the law, and granted all males the ability to vote by prohibiting voter discrimination based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude (Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments). Reconstruction began when the first United States soldiers arrived in slaveholding territories and enslaved people escaped from plantations and farms some of them fled into free states, and others found safety with U.S.

The Reconstruction era (1861 to 1900), the historic period in which the United States grappled with the question of how to integrate millions of newly freed African Americans into social, political, and labor systems, was a time of significant transformation within the United States.

A short history of reconstruction 1863 1877