Essay on Racism and Discrimination towards African-Americans

The Reconstruction of the United States after slavery ended was not successful or beneficial to black Americans. Even after the reconstruction period, black Americans were still getting discriminated against and didn’t have the same opportunities as white Americans. Black men would be arrested and punished for minor crimes that White would only get a slap on the wrist for. People with political power would not enforce reconstruction and not treat it like it is important and would write it off. Black men would die for not showing correct manners or other minor reason and their murderers would not be punished. Even people who supported black Americans like white republicans would be discriminated against.

Even after slavery was abolished black men were forced to work for white men to pay off any debt. “In the south, many black men were picked up for minor crimes or on trumped-up charges, and, when faced with staggering fines and court fees, forced to work for a local employer would who pay their fines for them...The paperwork and debt record of individual prisoners was often lost, and these men found themselves trapped in inescapable situations.” (O’Brien-Wagner). This quote shows how even after slavery ended black men were still used for labor. In most cases, it was because of fines they incurred, but he would end up trapped to do labor for his whole life because he would incur more debt from the employer because he cannot pay back the amount as fast as he is gaining more debt. 

After President Lincoln was assassinated and his Vice President Andrew Johnson was elected Johnson didn’t take the reconstruction as seriously as he should have. “Johnson, who had defended the Union as a United States senator and wartime governor of Tennessee and who was elected vice president under Lincoln in 1864, proved surprisingly lenient with white Southerners and unsympathetic to the people who had been held in slavery.” (Ayres). This shows that after Lincoln’s successor was elected he didn’t care much about getting Black Americans the justice and rights they deserved. It shows that he was easy on the southerners and he will not enforce reconstruction so things may not change any time soon. 

A terrorist group called the Ku Klux Klan murdered black Americans just for the color of their skin also murdered white republicans who wanted to see black Americans get equal rights and justice. “The basic goal of the Ku Klux Klan was not this kind of sadism. It wasn't even murder. It was to put black people back into their place as the labor force of the South, and not much beyond, and to drive out of business the political force, the Republican Party, that was trying to take them to higher places.” (Bligh). The point of the Ku Klux Klan wasn’t to kill black people for fun it was to get rid of black people and people who supported black people because of the Ku Klux Klan’s racist agendas. Even people who weren’t in the Ku Klux Klan discriminated against white republicans. “The violence in the South... was directed at white Southern Republicans. It was directed at black people. It was directed even at people who were not ostensibly political... this was a war of terror, aimed at not only the suppression of black voters and black politicos, but also at whites deemed to be ‘race traitors.’” (Walker). Meaning, the violent injustice was not just directed towards black people, it was directed towards anyone who tried helping them get equal rights or rights in general, and any white person who helped a black person would be seen as a “race traitor.”

Even today black Americans are still discriminated against because of their skin color. “Some of the problems of those years haunt American society today—vast inequalities of wealth and power, terrorist violence, aggressive racism.” (Foner). This shows that the reconstruction in the 1800s was not successful because some of the same problems that were going on before reconstruction are still going on today, around 150 years later. Even the American schools aren’t teaching their students the extent of slavery and everything that occurred after. “The student's answer shocked me, but I knew their incorrect answer had to do with the fact that schools spend very little time teaching black history. Most adults don't know much about black history, either.” (Michell-Patterson). This quote shows how little is taught about slavery and what happened after slavery in the American school system and how the severity of it is downplayed and overlooked.

Although, in 1868, the 14th Amendment was passed giving anyone who was born in the United States citizenship. This was to grant citizenship to any slaves whose ancestors were taken from Africa and relocated to America. This means that every citizen should have the same rights and the same protection. This was beneficial to black Americans because legally they should have been seen the same as a white man would have been.

In conclusion, reconstruction was attempted but it was not successful. Black Americans and white Americans were still viewed differently, and although they had the same rights some people thought that black Americans didn’t deserve their rights and tried to take them away. Racism was still alive even though slavery wasn’t.