Segregation

=Segregation in the Reconstruction= toc

The Civil War is now over and all the slaves are free. But even though the former slaves were free, they were still treated poorly. All of the African Americans stayed in the United States because they considered it their home. Laws still separated Blacks from Whites. Therefore there was still segregation in the United States even though the Blacks were free. Blacks faced segregation in bathrooms, restaurants, schools, movie theaters, and even had different water fountains. After the Civil War, legislatures for states in the south, ted by former Confederates, passed laws known as "black codes" that strongly limited the rights of Black Americans.

Before Segregation
= = Slavery was before Segregation in the United States. Slavery is when the Africans were shipped from Africa and but into labor by usually to always white Americans. The Africans were not paid either a little bit to none. Most were treated terribly and very few were treated decently. When black children turned 6-7 they became slaves and worked equally with no mercy with the adults. Slaves were sold at auctions which was humiliating to most slaves. After many years of slavery being and ordinary life style, it became noticed that many people in the United States didn't want it anywhere in the United States. After trying for many years to abolish it, many people were still Pro-Slavery and then the Civil War broke out. The South wanted slavery and the North did not. The North did win and slavery was abolished a little bit by little and soon was all gone in the United States.

Segregation Legislation
= = They were laws made about segregation. They could either support it or try to lessen segregation. It depended on what the government thought was best and what should be a law. Jim Crow Laws were considered some segregation legislations. Most laws that were made were said to make Blacks and Whites "separate but equal" and most of the times it wasn't very equal. They would give Blacks and Whites different public places that were supposed to be equal but usually the Black places weren't as good or nice as the White places were. They started some controversy with many people, blacks and whites, because of how unequal it actually was.

Black Codes
The Black Codes were a little different for different states, but they normally had limitations on black jobs, them owning property, and vagrancy laws under which blacks could be forced to work for whites if they were considered unemployed. For example Mississippi made it illegal for blacks to rent property in towns or cities and had severe penalties, and that included fines or imprisonment, for blacks who did not sign the labor contracts agreeing to work for whites. These codes effectively segregated blacks into the rural areas of the state where they were pretty much forced to become farm workers. Laws were also made so that schools, courts, and juries were segregated. The black codes prevented the newly freed slaves having a social life with other people of any color at all.

13th and 14th Amendment
The 13th Amendment mad slavery illegal in all of America. In the Constitution it declared that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude...shall exist within the United States." The 13th Amendment formally passed by the Congress on January 31 1865, abolished slavery in all of the United States. And on December 6 1865 it was ratified by the states in America. The 14th Amendment was ratified on July 9, 1868 and promised citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States." It also forbids that any states can deny "life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." The 14th amendment also expanded the protection of civil rights to all Americans greatly.

After the Reconstruction
Once the Reconstruction was officially over, the laws of segregation began to be overlooked. People in North and South became much less supportive of the Civil Rights and racial segregation started back up again. Then a lot of Supreme Court decisions made it so that racial segregation became promoted in the United States. The Supreme Court started to "set the stage" for the Jim Crow laws to take place. The Supreme Court argued that the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was unconstitutional. Then the Court ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment didn't prohibit individuals and organizations that were private from discriminating people because of their race.

Resources:
Garraty, John A. The Story of America. Austin, TX: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1994

McEarlth, Jessica. "Creation of the Jim Crow South". About.com/african-americanhistory [|]

"Reconstruction to 1954". Infoplease.com. [|]