How Did African Americans Contribute To The Failure Of Reconstruction

Reconstruction was a very tumultuous time in American history. The civil war was over, the union emerging as the victor. The union’s defeat of the secessionist confederacy meant the complete abolition of slavery in America. This was a massive victory for African Americans, as it meant they now had the agency to live their lives as they pleased for the most part, enjoying freedom for the first time in their lives, unshackled from the institution of slavery that had kept them down for the entirety of America’s existence. However, the abolition of slavery was only the beginning of the fight for equal rights for African Americans. Though they were no longer slaves, African Americans across the country still faced oppression and hardship from a
As the petition puts it, “Land monopoly is injurious to the advancement of the course of freedom, and if government does not make some provision by which we as Freedmen can obtain a homestead, we have not bettered our condition. Edisto Island Petition, 2) In seeking a vision for reconstruction in which African Americans are made citizens equal to that of whites, and securing meaningful freedom that allowed them to live life with the same rights and opportunities as everyone else around them, America’s fundamental right of private land ownership being granted to African Americans was an absolute necessity to protect the futures’ of African Americans, and fulfill the vision of equality and prosperity they sought to achieve for themselves and their future
Of course, many still saw them as what they were in their days as slaves, and such mindsets would eventually lead to the introduction of Jim Crow laws. The Edisto Island Petition and the Alabama Convention’s address to Alabama show in great detail the vision for reconstruction, a country where African Americans rally together behind a republican party that would continue to fight for them and grant ALL of the same rights as white people and are able to live out their lives in peace alongside white people, forever free from the tyranny of slavery and slave owners, as well as publicly being freed from the false perceptions and stereotypes placed upon them by people who simply wished to perpetuate the institution of slavery for financial gain. In this pursuit of equality and fair treatment in America, we see how meaningful freedom is a very different concept than simply being freed from