Reconstruction's Failure

Racism was and continues to be a huge issue in the United States that stems way back into our history. Racism was seen most often during the times surrounding slavery and especially in the South. However, once slavery was abolished in 1865 there was still a lot of prejudice from whites towards former slaves known as freedmen. The Northern Republicans who were more accepting of blacks wanted to give freedmen basic rights to become as close as possible to being equal to the white man. This spawned the era of Reconstruction which had goals such as uniting our divided nation and granting equal rights to all citizens. Sadly, Reconstruction failed due to extreme prejudice in the South, rising control of the Democratic party and the Compromise of 1877.
Extreme hatred towards blacks has spawned countless hate crime groups with one of the most famous groups being the Ku Klux Klan which is still active today. When blacks were given equal rights to vote by Congress, the KKK undermined these efforts by intimidating blacks not to vote, threatening their families and performing public lynchings (Document 2). This prejudice appeared in the streets and was also apparent in the polls. When the voting rights of White southerners were restored, the southerners followed traditional racist confederate beliefs and outnumbered freedmen who were not protected without a Republican in office which was now very unlikely (Document 3). This racism and prejudice towards blacks was not only being practiced by normal white civilians but also by Democratic political figures. Congressman Benjamin Boyer felt that blacks should not be able to vote because they are mentally inferior to whites and are not citizens so they are not entitled to participate in politics (Document 1). W.E.B. DuBois agreed that blacks should not get involved in politics but not for the same reasons. He stated that the black men had too much on their plate in that time and did not need to focus on politics and therefore had...