Emahjae Hackett - For African Americans in the south after the civil war, what help did they receive? What challenges did they face?

According to memory.lov.gov, Southern Blacks now faced the difficulty Northern Blacks had confronted--that of a free people surrounded by many hostile whites. "For we colored people did not know how to be free and the white people did not know how to have a free colored person about them," says one freedman, Houston Hartsfield Holloway. After the Civil War, African Americans were able to vote, participate in the political process, acquire the land of former owners, seek their own employment, and use public accommodations.