As the nineteenth century progressed, many abolitionists united to form numerous antislavery societies. These groups sent petitions with thousands of signatures to Congress, held abolition meetings and conferences, boycotted products made with slave labor, printed mountains of literature, and gave innumerable speeches for their cause. Individual abolitionists sometimes advocated violent means for bringing sl

The Reconstruction was a lame attempt at a political, social, and economic revolution. Under the Reconstruction Act, Congress, by the summer of 1868, had readmitted to the Union Arkansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida. How representative the new governments of these seven reconstructed states were can be judged from the fact that the majority of the governors, Representatives, and Senators elected were northern men who had gone south after the war to make their political fortunes. In the legislatures of Louisiana, South Carolina, and Mississippi, blacks gained complete control. In alarm, southern whites, seeing their civilization threatened and finding no legal way to stop the course of events, turned to illegal means. Soon violence became more and more frequent, and in 1870 increasing disorder led to the passage of an Enforcement Act severely punishing those who attempted to deprive the blacks of their civil rights. As time passed, it became more and more obvious that the problems of the south were not being solved by harsh laws and continuing rancor against former Confederates. In May 1872, Congress passed a general Amnesty Act, restoring full political privileges to all but about 500 Confederate sympathizers. Gradually southern states began electing members of the Democratic Party to office. By 1876, the Republicans remained in power in only three southern states. The election that year, one of the closest in American history, made it plain that the south would have no peace until northern troops were withdrawn. The next year, President Rutherford B. Hayes removed them, thereby admitting the failure of the "radical" reconstruction policy. Northern rule was ended in the south. But the south was now a region not only devastated by war but also burdened by debt caused by misgovernment and demoralized by a decade of radical warfare. After 12 years of false reconstruction from 1865 to 1877, supposed real efforts to rebuild the South began. Due to the bickering in Washington, problems starting arising in the South involving discrimination against liberated blacks. The enactment of Black Codes by newly formed Southern regimes was hurting the black emancipation movement. These laws were created to control the affairs of the freed blacks, acting as post-Civil War slave statutes.

Future generations of Black Americans responded to the injustices and racism of America by beginning the Civil Rights Movement of the 20th century. The post-war era marked a period of unprecedented energy against the second class citizenship accorded to African Americans in many parts of the nation. Resistance to racial segregation and discrimination with strategies such as civil disobedience, nonviolent resistance, marches, protests, boycotts, "freedom rides," and rallies received national attention as newspaper, radio, and television reporters and cameramen documented the struggle to end racial inequality. There were also continuing efforts to legally challenge segregation through the courts. During the Montgomery Bus Boycott, blacks of Montgomery, Alabama, decided that they would boycott the city buses until they could sit anywhere they wanted, instead of being relegated to the back when a white boarded. Sit-ins were also a form on nonviolent protest. The basic plan of the sit-ins was that a group of students would go to a lunch counter and ask to be served. If they were, they'd move on to the next lunch counter. If they were not, they would not move until they had been. If they were arrested, a new group would take their place. The students always remained nonviolent and respectful.

The Reconstruction revolution finally came to end because of its inability to solve the problems it was enacted to solve. The revolution had to come to an end because ex-slaves were not being treated much better and former slave owners felt ex-slaves were being treated too well. The status of newly freed slaves caused inten

Some topics in this essay:
African Americans, African American, Sumner Stevens, Convention Quakers, South Blacks, Blacks North, Sojourner Truth, Civil War, Black Codes, Slave Law, african americans, civil war, african american, civil rights, sojourner truth, slave law, racial equality, american society, fugitive slave law, social economic, fugitive slave, william lloyd garrison, rights freedom slaves, black white abolitionists, frederick douglass sojourner,