At the end of the Civil War I do believe that the African Americans made significant progress. They may have had to fight for their freedom as well go through a lot of unnecessary steps, but at the end it was all worth it. The reconstruction plan, that President Lincoln announced in 1863, however did not issue Africans Americans with creating new institutions and important legal precedents that would help them survive. The blacks had little power to withstand their oppression which allowed them in the 20th century to win freedom and equality. President Lincoln did not bargain a treaty with the defeated government. After the Civil War towns were gutted, there were burned plantations, neglected fields, destroyed bridges and railroads. Slaves were removed from white Southerners through the emancipation and when things got hard for the whites it would get even harder for the blacks. When the Civil War ended in 1865 many thousands of blacks left their plantations to go out and find a new life in freedom. The left their destination with nothing …show more content…
Everyone from the African Americans to the whites, whom were defeated, all had different views of what freedom was. The desire for independence from white control was really all the former slaves were wanting. Therefore, they pulled out of white institutions such as churches, clubs, societies, and other things such as schools, creating their own. The white southerners thought freedom was the ability to control destinies without interference from North and federal government. With their thinking, the whites tried to restore their society, by fighting for what they believed was freedom. Freedman’s Bureau, established in March of 1865, gave food to millions of the former slaves, staffed schools with missionaries and teachers, helped blacks settle on their own land, and which it was directed by General Oliver O.