Impacts of black codes,Jim Crow Laws and segregation on african Essay

Impacts of black codes,Jim Crow Laws and segregation on african americans in the United States - Essay Example Racism was so much deep rooted in an American’s heart that the enactments of anti-slavery laws and the relevant amendments in the US Constitution were merely to redirect a racial mind to find alternatives of white superiority over the Black. Indeed the amended Constitution provided the legal safeguard to the Black, barring the practice of slavery at the state level as well as, to the extent the state could interfere into the public affairs. But it could do nothing to bring about the changes in the culture and the society that intrinsically nourished the racial hostility against their former slaves. Forced by the Constitution and laws, the Americans, especially the Southern States could not but embrace their former slaves, always whispering into their ears, â€Å"You are a black and you must feel it† (Haws 34). This act of reminding the Black that they were inferior to the White and subjects to the White Grace was being done perfectly by Black Codes, Segregation and the Jim Crow Laws. The â€Å"separate but equal† policy in the South is emblematic of the Whites’ failure to assimilate the minor black community into the mainstream of the society. Reconstruction: the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments The racial Segregation and the Jim Crow laws, in a single phrase the â€Å"separate policy† of the south was essentially the South’s reaction to the 13th, 14th and the 15th constitutional Amendments during the Reconstruction in the post Civil War Period. Reconstruction’s primary goals were to establish the Black rights by withering out Slavery and to reintegrate the South with the nation. But the Southerners took it as a Northern insult aggravating the injury of the Civil War. The Reconstruction started with President Lincoln’s affirmative actions for a race-blind, equal and reunited America. While Lincoln followed a more moderate course to establish black people’s right and to reunite the South, the Radical R epublicans â€Å"opposed it on the ground that Lincoln reconstruction plan had freed the slaves without paying much attention to establishing their socio-political, economic and other rights† (Stampp 78). What the North feared the most was that the Government should play a more active role in introducing the people of races to the newly imposed freedom through educational, economic and other sector developments. As a result, by passing the Wade-Davis Bill in 1864 Republican dominated Congress declare that Southern States should be run by military governors and, Secession and Slavery would be outlawed with the consent of the fifty percent of a state’s voters. Eventually the Congress also passed â€Å"the 13th Amendment and established the Freedmen’s Bureau in order to provide the formers slaves and black communities with the opportunities of education, employment, medical service, and economic facilities† (Carter 67). With the reelection of the Democrats i n 1968, the Oval Office under Johnson’s Presidency followed the same path that Lincoln started immediately after the Civil War. But President Johnson’s lack of foresight and wholeheartedness severely affected Reconstruction. Eventually, the Congress voted for the 14th Amendment of the US constitution to provide legal safeguard to Black people’s civil right in 1866 and the 15th Amendment to protect the black’s right to vote in 1870. But along the passage of time, the reconstruction zeal began to wane. Indeed the different political scandal, corruption of the reconstructed governments, economic aftermaths, etc aggravated the waning of Reconstruction. The South’s Response to the 13th Amendment: Black Codes To the North’s surprise, the South began to impose unofficial and legislative restrictions on the black’s rights. Both theoretically and legally by the 13th Amendment of the