The Reconstruction period was a time of great difficulty for the United States. President Andrew Johnson faced the task of reuniting the North and South after the Civil War. Reconstruction was a time when the government believed everyone needed human rights, even African Americans. Until now, African Americans had no rights. They were still considered individuals in their own right in a society that proclaimed that all God's children were created equal. The national debate over Reconstruction began during the Civil War. Laws were put in place to grant rights to African Americans, but they failed drastically. Reconstruction was definitely a failure because of Jim Crow laws. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay During the era of slavery, most black Southerners remained in a cycle of poverty that allowed almost no escape. African Americans still lacked property ownership, economic opportunity, and political power. Some former slaves wanted to work their own land. The federal government sometimes granted land to blacks. Former slave owners attempted to impose indentured labor. Yet blacks insisted on sharecropping. Blacks formed the majority of the Republican Party in the South. (Enter more info here about the house and congress all that) During Reconstruction, segregation was increasing. The South designed black codes to return black people to semi-slavery. Much violence and discrimination continued on a large scale during reconstruction. Jim Crow made many contributions to segregation in America. Jim Crow laws legalized segregation and restricted the civil rights of black people. The Northern and Federal governments have done little, if anything, to prevent these laws. There were secret societies that sought to keep black people out of political processes and oppress them. These terrorist organizations have also started insurrections against state governments. After federal troops withdrew from the South, southern state governments and terrorist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan denied African Americans the right to vote. As a result, 187 blacks were lynched each year between 1889 and 1899. Racist attitudes toward African Americans continued, both in the South and the North. The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments guaranteed African Americans the rights of citizenship, equal protection under the law, and the vote. African Americans won the right to testify in court and serve on juries. The Freedmen's Bureau and other organizations helped many black families obtain housing, employment, and education. With the United States allowing these amendments, African Americans were no longer subject to the humiliation of Jim Crow laws. Reconstruction of the South failed because it failed to give blacks equal rights, and ultimately the South lost socially and economically. , and politically produced the same result, if not worse, than before the war, which concludes with its total ineffectiveness. But despite its overthrow, Reconstruction left an important legacy: the commitment to a republican society based on equality before the law, as evidenced by Reconstruction-era legislation that remained in force even when it has not been applied. A century later, during the civil rights movement, Americans, black and white, would draw on this heritage to renew..