The Reconstruction Era was characterized by the need to rebuild the destruction of the south after the war, to bring them back into, and under, the political sphere of the government in the north, as well as to address the situation arising from granting rights to the formerly enslaved. This process was fraught with dissent from the people as although they may have lost the war, the political ideology in which they lived and accepted for so long was not destroyed along with the government. People had to grapple with a shifting idea of ‘freedom’ away from the ownership of property to a more conceptual vision of freedom of equality and justice. This idea was constantly challenged with political maneuvering such as the ‘black codes’ which banned interracial marriage, limiting equality, as well as sharecropping which created a new version of bonded labor tying people to the land. This is contradictory to the spirit of the law - as was the point- as it introduced more hurdles that alienated the recently freed African Americans as an attempt to sustain the superiority of white Americans and prevent the freed slaves from fully integrating into society. This is antithetical to the modern understanding of ‘freedom’ where all citizens are totally equal under the law and in society in general.
During the Redemption Era, the advancements of civil rights were met with fierce opposition through both the legal system and through ‘vigilante’ terrorism. Examples of official legal opposition would be the implementation of poll taxes, contrived literacy tests, and jim crow laws which enforced segregation. These became possible because of the supreme court's ruling that the 1875 civil rights act was unconstitutional because the 14th amendment only banned specifically slavery and indentured servitude, not discrimination based on race. But for many people this was not enough. The members of the Ku Klux Klan are prime examples of this. They used terrorism reassert white supremacism through enforcing ‘unwritten laws’ through fear. Attacking prominent figures advocating for progressive policies, or who had -according to the KKK- too much power or influence for an African American.
During the Redemption Era, the advancements of civil rights were met with fierce opposition through both the legal system and through ‘vigilante’ terrorism. Examples of official legal opposition would be the implementation of poll taxes, contrived literacy tests, and jim crow laws which enforced segregation. These became possible because of the supreme court's ruling that the 1875 civil rights act was unconstitutional because the 14th amendment only banned specifically slavery and indentured servitude, not discrimination based on race. But for many people this was not enough. The members of the Ku Klux Klan are prime examples of this. They used terrorism reassert white supremacism through enforcing ‘unwritten laws’ through fear. Attacking prominent figures advocating for progressive policies, or who had -according to the KKK- too much power or influence for an African American.