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By the end of this section, you will be able to:
  • Explain the reasons for the collapse of Reconstruction
  • Describe the efforts of white southern “redeemers” to roll back the gains of Reconstruction

The effort to remake the South generated a brutal reaction among southern whites, who were committed to keeping blacks in a subservient position. To prevent blacks from gaining economic ground and to maintain cheap labor for the agricultural economy, an exploitative system of sharecropping spread throughout the South. Domestic terror organizations, most notably the Ku Klux Klan, employed various methods (arson, whipping, murder) to keep freed people from voting and achieving political, social, or economic equality with whites.

Building black communities

The degraded status of black men and women had placed them outside the limits of what antebellum southern whites considered appropriate gender roles and familial hierarchies. Slave marriages did not enjoy legal recognition. Enslaved men were humiliated and deprived of authority and of the ability to protect enslaved women, who were frequently exposed to the brutality and sexual domination of white masters and vigilantes alike. Slave parents could not protect their children, who could be bought, sold, put to work, brutally disciplined, and abused without their consent; parents, too, could be sold away from their children ( [link] ). Moreover, the division of labor idealized in white southern society, in which men worked the land and women performed the role of domestic caretaker, was null and void where slaves were concerned. Both slave men and women were made to perform hard labor in the fields.

An engraving captioned “A Slave Father Sold Away from His Family” shows a black man, with a box of belongings on his shoulder, sadly bidding farewell to his wife, children, and other members of the slave community. Behind him, a well-dressed white man and woman await his departure.
After emancipation, many fathers who had been sold from their families as slaves—a circumstance illustrated in the engraving above, which shows a male slave forced to leave his wife and children—set out to find those lost families and rebuild their lives.

In the Reconstruction era, African Americans embraced the right to enjoy the family bonds and the expression of gender norms they had been systematically denied. Many thousands of freed black men who had been separated from their families as slaves took to the road to find their long-lost spouses and children and renew their bonds. In one instance, a journalist reported having interviewed a freed slave who traveled over six hundred miles on foot in search of the family that was taken from him while in bondage. Couples that had been spared separation quickly set out to legalize their marriages, often by way of the Freedmen’s Bureau, now that this option was available. Those who had no families would sometimes relocate to southern towns and cities, so as to be part of the larger black community where churches and other mutual aid societies offered help and camaraderie.

Sharecropping

Most freed people stayed in the South on the lands where their families and loved ones had worked for generations as slaves. They hungered to own and farm their own lands instead of the lands of white plantation owners. In one case, former slaves on the Sea Islands off the coast of South Carolina initially had hopes of owning the land they had worked for many decades after General Sherman directed that freed people be granted title to plots of forty acres.

Questions & Answers

the diagram of the digestive system
Assiatu Reply
How does twins formed
William Reply
They formed in two ways first when one sperm and one egg are splited by mitosis or two sperm and two eggs join together
Oluwatobi
what is genetics
Josephine Reply
Genetics is the study of heredity
Misack
how does twins formed?
Misack
What is manual
Hassan Reply
discuss biological phenomenon and provide pieces of evidence to show that it was responsible for the formation of eukaryotic organelles
Joseph Reply
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Yousuf Reply
the study of living organisms and their interactions with one another and their environments
AI-Robot
the study of living organisms and their interactions with one another and their environment.
Wine
discuss the biological phenomenon and provide pieces of evidence to show that it was responsible for the formation of eukaryotic organelles in an essay form
Joseph Reply
what is the blood cells
Shaker Reply
list any five characteristics of the blood cells
Shaker
lack electricity and its more savely than electronic microscope because its naturally by using of light
Abdullahi Reply
advantage of electronic microscope is easily and clearly while disadvantage is dangerous because its electronic. advantage of light microscope is savely and naturally by sun while disadvantage is not easily,means its not sharp and not clear
Abdullahi
cell theory state that every organisms composed of one or more cell,cell is the basic unit of life
Abdullahi
is like gone fail us
DENG
cells is the basic structure and functions of all living things
Ramadan
What is classification
ISCONT Reply
is organisms that are similar into groups called tara
Yamosa
in what situation (s) would be the use of a scanning electron microscope be ideal and why?
Kenna Reply
A scanning electron microscope (SEM) is ideal for situations requiring high-resolution imaging of surfaces. It is commonly used in materials science, biology, and geology to examine the topography and composition of samples at a nanoscale level. SEM is particularly useful for studying fine details,
Hilary
cell is the building block of life.
Condoleezza Reply
what is cell divisoin?
Aron Reply
Diversity of living thing
ISCONT
what is cell division
Aron Reply
Cell division is the process by which a single cell divides into two or more daughter cells. It is a fundamental process in all living organisms and is essential for growth, development, and reproduction. Cell division can occur through either mitosis or meiosis.
AI-Robot
What is life?
Allison Reply
life is defined as any system capable of performing functions such as eating, metabolizing,excreting,breathing,moving,Growing,reproducing,and responding to external stimuli.
Mohamed
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Source:  OpenStax, U.s. history. OpenStax CNX. Jan 12, 2015 Download for free at http://legacy.cnx.org/content/col11740/1.3
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