MODULE TWO: 2/3-2/9: Reconstruction and the Redemption Era

Glimpses at the Freedmen - The Freedmen's Union Industrial School, Richmond, Va. / from a sketch by Jas E. Taylor.

Reconstruction was an era in U.S. history that has oftentimes been overlooked or marginalized in our national historical narrative. This era was characterized by a shift in the role of the federal government as Radical Republicans in the North attempted to establish federal protections for newly freed slaves. In the South, local legislatures were populated with black men and the old southern powers were restricted by martial law. However, with the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, there was a power shift as a southern sympathizer, Andrew Johnson, became President. 

Reconstruction was also characterized by the question of how to allow seceded states to reenter the Union. As the nation focused its attention on repairing the South, where the majority of the fighting occurred, resistance to equality would lead to the Redemption Era. The promise of equality was would dimmed once the unreconstructed southerners took back control of the South and new laws and restrictions on Black rights were established. By the later part of the 19th Century, the nation turned its attention to the Industrial Revolution and looked west to the Plains and beyond. 

With the end of Reconstruction came a resurgence in the South of violent resistance to the legal and social movement towards equal protection under the law. The newly ratified 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments were challenged in the courts. At the same time, the White Citizens Council and the Klu Klux Klan organized locally to terrorize black citizens, especially black men who had the right to vote under the 15th Amendment. 

While the Radical Republicans established the concept of "equal protection" with the 14th Amendment, this concept did not have a clear definition. What would equal protection mean? After all, our federalism created separate spheres of power. Did the national Congress have the authority to create laws that impacted the way individuals were treated within states? Or was that an overreach of Congressional power? In this era, the Supreme Court took its first steps in defining the power of Congress in creating equal protection laws for citizens.