Reconstruction did not transform the South for African-Americans. I have come to this conclusion from reading "Retreat" and "A Short History of Reconstruction". After reading the two readings, it made me realize slavery did not really "end" until the Civil Rights Act. Reconstruction in my opinion just bought on all of the "white supremacist" groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan. In the beginning of Reconstruction it was good advice for African-Americans but then after two to three years the turn went from better to worst.
At first, when the south was transformed, it began help them to move toward the nineteenth century by making a new social order. The south's Redeemers, Secessionists, Democrats, Union Whigs Veterans of Confederacy, younger leaders, traditional planters, and advocates formed the New South. They began reducing black politicians, reducing state officials salaries, cutting state and property taxes, tenants didn't get any benefits, laborers, tenants, and small farmers paid taxes, and the poor could not afford schooling anymore.
White Supremacists groups developed in the early 1868, they began immediately after African- American's became ex-slaves. From the beginning of their existence they portrayed hatred and were very violent people. They first began by holding committee meetings about violence, but when President Grant came to office in the late 1868, he tried his best to put a stop to this. He began arresting and trying to convict hundreds of K.K.K. members, but this did not stop the violence nor the hatred it just interest others. President Grant also enforced legislation and sent troops out to prosecute Klan terrorists.
After being accommodated to "equal", African-Americans still did not have the right to vote, this did not come until the following year in 1869, when the fifteenth amendment was passed by Congress stating "no one will be denied the right to vote on behalf of their race".
