The conditions in the South during Reconstruction
Even though Southern states rejoined the Union and agreed to the 13th amendment (which outlawed the institution of slavery), the South looked very similar to what it did before the Civil War started. Even though African Americans were technically free, many of them still worked on plantations. There work on plantations was under the system known as sharecropping. Sharecropping is a system in which a person leases land from a farm owners. In return, the worker promises to give land owners a share of their crop. This system resulted in strict labor contracts. Ultimately, this system would tie African Americans to plantations as plantation owners used loopholes within the contract to keep their tenants from finding other opportunities.
Along with this, African Americans were still treated horribly in the South. The development of the Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist organization, resulted in the beating and killing of thousands of African American citizens. This group was created in order to strike fear in the hearts of African American citizens and to prevent them from using their newly gained rights (like the right for men to vote).
Lastly, the South would continue to treat African Americans as inferior by the implementation of black codes and Jim Crow laws. These laws allowed for the development of segregated public and private facilities.
