Reconstruction: America After the Civil War

    

    Reconstruction is a period of American history I feel is largely glossed over in our country's educational system. Our collective consciousness usually goes from the end of Slavery straight to Jim Crow, but not many know that there was long period of potential prosperity and great opportunity for African Americans within those two milestones. In fact, there were many Black congressmen and women during this period.

    The Reconstruction Era was the process of the country trying to come to terms with the consequences of the Civil War; namely the abundance of newly freed men and women within their country now. The biggest question needing answering was "Who was a citizen? and what defines one?" The main conflict in the era derives from the difference in how the North and South viewed the end of the War: Grant thought that their military victory symbolized a victory for their ideals as well, but Lee believed the North simply had more manpower than them and confessed no wrong. As a result, the two halves of the country talked right past each other during their supposed peace treaty. Hence why, there was such a vitriolic reply from the South once the federal government took action to benefit African Americans.

    The federal government's first act of business was to establish a federal agency known as the Freedmen's Bureau to provide land for the newly freed men. They planned to make good on their promise of 40-acres and a mule, but Lincoln's successor, Andrew Johnson, who Frederick Douglass declared "not a friend of the black man," used the land to softly restore the South. This documentary finally taught me what people currently mean by "reparations" for African Americans. I always thought it was about wanting compensation for having to endure slavery but its more concrete than that. It's about a debt owed by the country; a federal promise they failed to keep and still owe the descendants of formerly enslaved African Americans. In the Reconstruction era, we see a story as old as time within this country's history; African Americans experience a brief moment of potential prosperity and opportunity... only to have it stripped away from them by the system that supposed to protect them.