Reconstruction Documentary Reflection

I learned new information by watching the Reconstruction-Era documentary. The documentary started out with news footage of a 2015 crime that occurred at a historically black church, where a twenty-one year old man opened fire on churchgoers. This highlighted how beliefs from the Civil War and Reconstruction Era are sadly still prevalent today, harming the black community all around us. 

This time in history was when everyone in the country no matter their race tried to come together post Civil War and was filled with both hope and violence. Around 180,000 black men had enlisted in the war and were then freed when the Union had won. The United States had to essentially rebuild. However, this became very difficult after Lincoln was assassinated due to his anti-slavery views and Andrew Johnson was sworn in as President. Quickly, many anti-slavery politicians and activists criticized Johnson. One of the most notable was Frederick Douglass, who noticed that when he went to shake Johnson's hand, he was very apprehensive and smelt of alcohol. Johnson did many unlikeable things that didn't work, some of which included giving white people ways to "keep black citizens under wraps," requiring wealthy Southerners to come to him personally to be pardoned, etc. 

Finding family members after being separated because of slavery was a huge problem at the time. Local newspapers would allow people to put "information wanted" columns in the paper with information regarding a family member they were looking for. People even began walking on foot to places where they had last seen a certain family member, hoping they could possibly find them there. 

Rioting became extremely prevalent in areas of the South where white people couldn't accept the fact that slaves were no longer slaves and were free citizens who must be treated equally. One riot happened in Memphis Tennessee killing forty-eight people where all but two were black, and another shortly after occurred in New Orleans killing forty black people. 

There were a lot of negative occurrences during this time, but there were also some positives, including implementing the Fifteenth Amendment. This gave black men the right to vote. Sadly, when black men went to vote they had to go in groups with weapons in case any white people tried to attack. 

The Reconstruction Era was a difficult period in U.S. history with many negatives and positives. Watching the documentary gave me insight to what this time was truly like.