Essay On African Americans After The Civil War

It is human nature to regard someone as inferior to yourself. Time and time again, groups of people deemed inferior have risen up to fight for their rights. Sometimes the quarrel was small, but these kinds of injustices can tear countries apart. The American Civil War had over 500,000 casualties, all of them fighting over African American rights. But whites weren’t the only ones acting as agents of change. African Americans had many ways that they fought for their freedom, in combat and out. These methods changed the African American population and the
United States forever.
Even though most of the African American race was in slavery, they still had their ways to fight for their freedom. Because of the slaves’ harsh treatment, some African Americans ran away from their masters. Luckily, some escaped slaves and kind citizens helped African Americans escape to the North through the Underground Railroad. (OI) From there, the escaped slave could become a
soldier for the Union or give information about the Confederate Army. (OI, Doc. 1) One African American, Frederick Douglass, escaped slavery and wrote a newspaper about how bad it actually was. This led to more people taking up the abolitionist cause. After the Emancipation Proclamation was decreed, African Americans could now serve in the military. Many former slaves joined the army to fight for liberty to all slaves. (OI, Doc. 5,6)
After four hard-fought years, the Union eventually won the Civil War.
With the South defeated, African Americans were now free from slavery. Because of that, America and African Americans were affected in many ways. The most prominent method for blacks to gain their freedom was by escaping to the North, and once they were freed by the Civil War, the North had a ton of new free men in their cities. Consequently, that led to many questions, like if they were citizens or if they deserve the rights white men get. One answer that Congress passed was the 15th Amendment. It granted civil rights to everyone, including African Americans, and gave the job of protecting those rights to the government, but their civil rights would be segregated from whites’ until the 1960’s. Also, because the South’s former slaves escaped or had been freed by the war, the South held a racist grudge against all blacks. They would be treated very poorly in all southern states, and sometimes tortured and killed without any opposition from the
law.
The Civil War era was a tough time for African Americans. Before and during the war, they were fighting for their freedom to be equal with whites. After the war, they were presented with formalities, like citizenship, but most people still didn’t treat them equally. Moreover, for all of their hard work, they did impact America, but their race wouldn’t be truly equal for a hundred years. Even so, if you asked the African Americans of the 1860’s who fought for liberty if they were happy with their work, they would call it a victory.