They realized that nothing really changed much. The freed African-Americans still had almost no political rights and the system was controlled mostly by corrupt politicians who came from the north to become rich. The regular people still had huge farms and turned the former slave system into a system of sharecropping which was in many ways similar to slavery. The freedom was very superficial and in reality people still lived as bad as before the war.
the most important element was the fact that with freedom they get the rights to have the say, the right of choice, choose leaders, and choose they're own religion.
