Congress Reconstruction efforts to ensure equal right to freedom failed because the enforcement acts that was giving in Document 2, Prejudice in the south giving Benjamin Boyer’s speech and from the book “Black Reconstruction in America” in document 6, another reason was the Compromise of 1877.
In the exert from the New York times, it states the Ku Klux Klan purpose was to establish a nucleus around which the adherents of the late rebellion might safely rally. The whites thought that it threatened individual freedom because it allowed the government to punish the Ku Klux Klan and banned disguises. The kkk wonted to enforce the fourteenth amendment which is to “make slaves citizens” to the constitution of the U.S. They believed in the innate inferiority of blacks. The Ku Klux Klan and other terrorist groups tried to keep African Americans from making economic process They killed there livestock, attacked the African Americans who owned land and forced them to work for previous slaveholders.
Many southerners were opposed to African Americans gaining equal right and voting in elections so they formed terrorist groups. They were very prejudice in the south. Benjamin Boyer’s wrote a speech that stated” It is common for the advocates of negro suffrage to assume that the color of the negro is the main obstacle to his political quality” meaning its common for people to see black as people who shouldn’t have the right to vote. He also said Negros are not equal of white Americans and are not entitled. In the book Black reconstruction in America he said the American Negro was compelled to give up his political power. What he was saying if Negros wonted to work or wonted to increase the income they couldn’t handle politics to.
Another reason was the Compromise of 1877.After the southerners made great changes affecting the lives of freed African Americans, restricting the right of freed slaves. Hayes got the 20 disputed electoral votes.