Getting Political with my History 11 homework

Persecution at times feels as though it is ingrained in the American culture.  The hatred of a minority group and the suppression of its rights seem to be on a perpetual cycle.  In modern society the persecuted minority is homosexuals. Yet, the trials and tribulations seem to be the same.  Legal actions attempting to bring about social change followed by a private citizen rebellion, the legal advancements being found unconstitutional and overturned allowing the previous discrimination to take hold once again.  The major achievement in abolition was allowing freedmen civil rights and liberties, specifically the right to vote.  However the Redeemer party in conjunction with the Klu Klux Klan through the implementation of terror and Jim Crow laws effectively stripped freedmen’s rights in the South, finding a legal recourse to evade the 15^th Amendment.

Once the 15^th Amendment was signed into law, the next step for Democrats, Redeemers and the KKK was to find legal ways around them.  Violence was used as a successful tactic to keep slaves in line prior to abolition, and violence was effectively used post-abolition to keep freedmen from the polling lines.  The threat of physical violence, “as was the case in the late 1860’s, white vigilante violence had two goals: to strip away the freedmen’s hard-won economic, social, social and legal rights and to prevent them from voting and holding office” (Keene, 426).  Self-preservation was an effective means of keeping freedmen from the polls, but in order to reassert white control of the South there needed to be legal ways to keep freedmen from voting.

The implementation of Jim Crow laws, allowed Redeemers to legally keep freedmen from the polls.  The language of the 15^th Amendment decreed “the right of citizens of the United States shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude” (Keene, 421).  By creating laws designed to discriminate against poor white voters and freedmen the Redeemers, Democrats and vigilantes were able to effectively manipulate the Southern vote.  The implementation of the poll tax was a blatant attempt at stifling the voter’s rights of freedmen and poor white voters, who could not afford to pay to hear their voices heard.  To hinder the freedmen who could afford to pay the poll tax, a literacy test was next enacted.

Banking on the freedmen’s lack of formal education compared to those of white citizens, the literacy test allowed for another means of hindering the African American vote.  The trouble these laws posed for white supremacy was that in order to avoid being in violation of the 15^th Amendment these provisions had to apply to all citizens.  The lack of structured public education as well as a rebuilding economy left many white voters vulnerable to the Jim Crow laws.  With the implementation of the “grandfather clause” white voters were now protected from the discriminatory laws intended for the freedmen.

With fear and loopholes white supremacy was easily lost and regained in the South.  Abolishing slavery needed to happen but without the resources to maintain the freedoms supplied by the Emancipation Proclamation, the 14^th Amendment and the 15^th Amendment white supremacy regained a stronghold.  No matter how well intentioned social change and policy may be, without practical applications of protections and tangible consequences for violations the road to any social change is riddled with back steps. The road to eliminate discrimination is predictable, consistent and has not evolved much overtime.  A revolution, victory, implementation, loss of rights, another revolution involving education and members of the opposition, then a lasting change, hopefully.  This was the road of freedmen, allowing them “a moment in the sun” then the return to business as usual.