After the 13th Amendment was introduced, Black people believed that hey were entitled to free land after years of unpaid work as slaves. In 1865, President Andrew Johnson formed the Freedmen’s Bureau. According to the second plan, black people had the right to receive forty acres of abandoned land for personal use. Black Americans would have three years to pay for this land. Thus, even though the Freedmen’s Bureau was underfinanced, it had a comprehensive plan to reconstruct the economy of the South. However, the plan was not meant to come true, as shortly after, Howard started to give out the land back to its former owners. As a result, instead of receiving land to have economic freedom, African Americans engaged in sharecropping, which turned into a vicious cycle of poverty and debt. Thus, the first major failure of the reconstruction is the inability to provide African Americans with economic independence due to the lack of land redistribution.
Even though the 13th Amendment gave Black people control over their physical bodies, they could not fully exercise this right. The response of the elite to Blacks exercising their rights was not favorable. The elite wanted to protect their way of living by any means. They tried to formally follow the laws and pass new laws that reinforced slavery under another name. For instance, Black Codes and Ku Klux Klan were resurrections of the slave trade and slave patrol. Black Codes required all the Black people to have contracts with white landowners; otherwise, they would be fined. If they were unable to pay the fine, law enforcers would look for landowners who could pay for them. Black people would be forced to work to pay their debt to landowners, which essentially was another form of slavery. In summary, the second failure of the reconstruction era was the inability to provide African Americans with physical health.
Even though the 14th Amendment granted citizenship to Blacks, failure to define citizenship properly allowed the passing of Jim Crow laws, which laid a start to the era of segregation. Even though African Americans were meant to be “separate but equal,” the segregation laws discriminated against African Americans. Jim Crow laws promoted segregation in the majority of public places, including schools, parks, libraries, drinking fountains, restrooms, buses, trains, and restaurants. The laws resulted in stigma among African Americans and inequality in the opportunities. Moreover, these laws often prohibited African Americans from exercising their rights, which was another significant failure of the reconstruction era.
The final major failure of the reconstruction era is the 15th Amendment. Even though it extended the right to vote to all African American males. However, all women remained deprived of the basic right to vote, which brought much dissatisfaction to women suffragists. Additionally, the local government started to implement policies that would limit the ability of African Americans to exercise their right to vote. For instance, poll taxes were introduced to disenfranchise impoverished and minority voters, as they were unable to pay the fixed fee for the ability to vote. Additionally, grandfather clauses and literacy tests were introduced for the same reason. Ku Klux Klan also had a significant impact on the ability of African Americans to exercise their rights, as it made many Blacks fear. In short, the reconstruction era failed to secure the ability of African Americans to vote.