Meethana Singh-Question 2

How did the views of white and black Southerners differ concerning the future of African Americans?

 

The views of white and black Southerners differed concerning the future of African Americans because White Southerners believed that African Americans were ignorant, lazy, dishonest, and responsible for bad government during reconstruction .

Info from:

http://www.aaregistry.org/historic_events/view/reconstruction-americas-first-attempt-integrate

"In short, Reconstruction was America's first attempt at interracial democracy. For much of the 20th century, virtually all writings highlighted this era as one of constant filthy conditions politically and socially. Nearly all attempts by Lincoln and his successor Andrew Johnson were undermined by the vindictive political schemes of the Republican Party. Corruption followed, led by crooked Carpetbaggers (Northerners who pimped the surplus of the government), Scalawag voters in particular (Southerners who cooperated with the Republicans for personal gain), and ignorant and naive free black people who were incapable of exercising the new political power that had been granted to them.

Soon after Reconstruction began, the South's white community banded together in what they referred to as patriotic organizations like the Ku Klux Klan to overthrow these “black” governments and restore “home rule.” Popularized by films such as “Birth of a Nation,” this belief rested on the assumption that black suffrage was the gravest error of the Civil War period. This helped justify the South's system of racial segregation and the disenfranchisement of black voters in particular. Critical to the debate over Reconstruction were the complex reactions of Southerners, black and white, to the end of slavery. To African-Americans, freedom meant independence from white control and their families stood as the initial pillar of the post emancipation difference."