I believe his view to be correct as, in contrast to Hughes, he does not claim that the lives of blacks improved "significantly" but rather it "took many years" for even slight progress to be made. ... After the Emancipation Proclamation, the Age of Reconstruction saw the introduction of Black codes in many Southern States as white officials, who had served the Confederacy, were elected to govern. The black codes were aimed at stopping the movement of equality in the "de jure" sense, demonstrated by the vagrancy laws which saw homeless unemployed black Americans ar...

• Word Count: 3529
• Approx Pages: 14
• Grade Level: Undergraduate