'African Americans and Southern Racism During Reconstruction Essay\r'

'Introduction\r\nAt the end of the obliging fight, America face up the difficult line of work of uniting not only ii separated territories of the United States, but likewise two races long separated by racial discrimination and culture. Devastated and embittered by the damage of the war, the southeast had a long way to go in order to achieve dead on target comparability between the former break ones back owners and former slaves. The majority of the confederation remained slump in racial behavior, finding post- obliging fight legal loopholes to diminish African American sort outs (Tindall & antiophthalmic factor; Shi, 2010, pp. 757-758). Southerners take to marginalize vitriolics in their behavior toward ex-slaves and the later African American generation, continuing the escalation of racial tensions through etiolated fear and invidious attitudes (Tindall & group A; Shi, 2010, p. 759). closely subversively, southern newspapers propagated stereotypes against Af rican Americans in their reportage and descriptions of constitutional conventionalitys (Logue, 1979, p. 342). Although basis Reconstruction offered round(prenominal) progress toward social equation afterwards the Civil War, its success was short-lived as African Americans suffered vast disenfranchisement through racialist rulings, attitudes, and media representation in the South at the deviate of the cytosine.\r\nRulings against African Americans\r\nAfter the Civil War had come to an end, African Americans in the South quickly make subprogram of their new-found semi policy-making and social rights, employing their right to voting from the Fifteenth Amendment and serving as turgid political figures (Tindall & international ampere; Shi, 2010, p. 722). However, the formerly warm commitment to Radical Reconstruction curtly dwindlight-emitting diode (Tindall & Shi, 2010, p. 739). Many of the advances toward civil equality were soon erased: In 1883, the Supreme address decl ard the Civil Rights Laws of 1875 unconstitutional, and the political condition bleaks had gained, especially in the South where 90% of Blacks lived, was completely undone. Black voter club dropped from 96% to 26% in South Carolina in just 12 years (1876-1888); in those same 12 years, voter participation of Blacks dropped from 53% to 18% in Georgia (Burris-Kitchen & Burris, 2011, p. 5). Even age African Americans enjoyed an uninhibited liberty to voting rights, some still suffered disenfranchisement at the hand of rampant racial discrimination in the South.\r\nAlthough discontent Southerners could not impede the Black right to vote, they found ulterior methods to marginalize African Americans. â€Å"Since the Fifteenth Amendment made it inconceivable simply to deny African Americans the right to vote, disenfranchisement was accomplished indirectly, through such de faults as poll taxes (or head taxes) and literacy tests” (Tindall & Shi, 2010, p. 757). â⠂¬Å"Jim vaunt” laws mandated racial segregation in man areas in the South and were often attended by physical abuse and terror to African Americans (Tindall & Shi, 2010, pp. 756-759).\r\nThese underhand activities in the South demonstrated that while African Americans were technically free, they continually suffered from unjust rulings and actions. These sprang from the rampantly racial attitudes in the South: Although great strides were made toward political and economic freedom for Blacks following the Civil War, the progress made was quickly squashed by political movements and rhetoric, which implied that Blacks could not handle their newly-found freedom and that the etiolated functional class was curseened by Blacks who were trying to take their jobs, their property, and their g everywherenment away(p) from them (Burris-Kitchen & Burris, 2011, p. 5).\r\nRacist Attitudes\r\nMany Southerners continue to believe and propagate these ideas that African American s had a subversive agenda to the White working class. These ideas culminated in deep-rooted attitudes against African Americans in the South: â€Å"During the 1890s the attitudes that had permitted moderation in race relations evaporated. A risky ‘Negrophobia’ swept across the South and oftentimes of the nation at the end of the century” (Tindall & Shi, 2010, p. 756). However, African Americans at the turn of the century had become weary of disenfranchisement and were limit to stand up against these attitudes: â€Å"This generation was more assertive and less patient than their parents. ‘We are not the Negro from who the chains of bondage fell a quarter century ago, most assuredly not,’ a dark editor announced” (Tindall & Shi, 2010, p. 756). Unfortunately, this may have simply increased a White agenda of racial discrimination, as â€Å"a growing number of unsalted white adults, however, were equally determined to hold in â⠂¬ËœNegroes in their place’” (Tindall & Shi, 2010, p. 756).\r\nWhether Southerners felt up that African Americans imposed a threat to their jobs, their safety, or their rights, the overarching attitude of the South intelligibly displayed a strong craving to book racial dominance of the pre-Civil War era. berth of this attitude motivated a desire to limit education for African Americans: To keep Blacks uneducated meant Whites could boast of their superior mind; this had been in the arsenal of Whites for hundreds of years earlier to Reconstruction and continues to be used over 130 years after Reconstruction. demurrer of education for Blacks existed through Reconstruction as a form of White racialism and a justification for their inferior political and economic status (Burris-Kitchen & Burris, 2011, p. 6). each kind of advantage Whites could claim in the South became ammunition in their discriminatory attitudes. These ideas and attitudes fed the propagatio n of racist stereotypes and turn in southern newspapers.\r\nPrejudiced Media in the South\r\nPerhaps the most discriminating yet shocking form of racism in the South during Reconstruction was the nonreversible reporting of numerous southern newspapers. Whether the ideas and attitudes of many southern Whites modulated these published stereotypes or vice versa, it is clear that southern ordinaryations often encourage and promoted racist attitudes at the end of the century. A publication in Charleston, South Carolina displayed this racist subtext: â€Å" magic spell promising its readers ‘truth,’ the Charleston hydrargyrum mocked journalistic license by genuinely printing racist ridicule. A preferred method was to scorn African-Americans in the convention as a race, exploiting racist attitudes relieve by white readers from slavery” (Logue, 1979, p. 339). finish the constitutional convention in capital of South Carolina in 1867, white journalists used raci st stereotypes in describing the black delegates’ involvement: â€Å"Reporters emphasised how blacks would â€Å"chuckle and grin,” thereby exploiting the racist supposal of many whites that blacks were mere fun-loving, animal-like creatures who had to be saved from themselves” (Logue, 1979, p. 341).\r\nThe Charleston paper encouraged racist attitudes through the ridicule of black language and pronunciation, mocking ex-slave â€Å"ignorance” rather than reporting significant issues discussed at the convention: When blacks debated the issue of ‘ changing the title of districts to counties,’ for example, the only thing the reporters hear was â€Å"the very awkward sound of ‘deestrict’ as district is pronounced by some of the delegates.” Because of their preoccupation with such factors, reporters seldom sensible their readers about issues that were discussed, such as public education, relief from debts, taxes, and so on ( Logue, 1979, p. 342). In this manner, the South remained entrapped in a media-fueled hesitancy and fear of African Americans, feeding the continued presence of racism and discrimination during the post-Civil War reconstruction.\r\nConclusion\r\nIn conclusion, the progress of Radical Reconstruction mostly failed to reform the disenfranchisement of African Americans in the South on a long-term scale. The attitudes of the Southern whites continued to cast the freedom of former slaves as they faced discriminating rulings, racist attitudes, and biased media. While some African Americans from further generations were largely un leave aloneing to bow subserviently to the effects of white terror and discrimination, civil rights equality had a long and arduous avenue to completion in the South. While many of the racist attitudes of the post-Civil War South see shocking to a modern-day reader, the influence of the actions and attitudes of white Southerners serves as a monitoring device of the power of repeated falsehoods, particularly inside media subtext and bias.\r\nThe disenfranchisement of African Americans during reconstruction displays the extent of deep-seated racial prejudice based on fear, stubbornness, and ignorance. As Burris-Kitchen and Burris point out: throughout American history, Blacks have been demonized and criminalized, and this history has led us to where we are today. Until we can salmagundi the perceptions of Blacks through the media, political and economic arenas they will continue to pay the price for an inherently racist political, economic, educational, and criminal justice dodging (Burris-Kitchen & Burris, 2011, p. 14).\r\nReferences\r\nBurris-Kitchen, D., & Burris, P. (2011). From slavery to prisons: A\r\nhistorical delineation of the criminalization African Americans. Journal of Global Intelligence & Policy, 4 (5), 1-16. Retrieved from http://0-web.ebscohost.com.library.regent.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=adef70d4-c 4d9-4d2b-b5c9-3b1efa487879%40sessionmgr14&vid=2&hid=127# Logue, C. M. (March 1979). Racist reporting during reconstruction. Journal of Black Studies, 9 (3), 335-349. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/2784304 Tindall, G. B.; Shi, D. E. (2010). America: A narrative history (8th ed.). New York: W.W. Norton & Company.\r\n'