Opponents of this progress, however, soon rallied against the former slaves' freedom and began to find means for eroding the gains for which many had shed their blood. Grandfathers and their grandchildren sat together in classrooms seeking to obtain the tools of freedom.Īfter the Civil War, with the protection of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution and the Civil Rights Act of 1866, African Americans enjoyed a period when they were allowed to vote, actively participate in the political process, acquire the land of former owners, seek their own employment, and use public accommodations. 1 : to face or endure with courage braved the rush-hour traffic to get there braving the elements. Former slaves of every age took advantage of the opportunity to become literate. Definition of brave (Entry 2 of 3) transitive verb. The South, however, saw Reconstruction as a humiliating, even vengeful imposition and did not welcome it.ĭuring the years after the war, black and white teachers from the North and South, missionary organizations, churches and schools worked tirelessly to give the emancipated population the opportunity to learn. The Reconstruction implemented by Congress, which lasted from 1866 to 1877, was aimed at reorganizing the Southern states after the Civil War, providing the means for readmitting them into the Union, and defining the means by which whites and blacks could live together in a nonslave society. One freedman, Houston Hartsfield Holloway, wrote, “For we colored people did not know how to be free and the white people did not know how to have a free colored person about them.”Įven after the Emancipation Proclamation, two more years of war, service by African American troops, and the defeat of the Confederacy, the nation was still unprepared to deal with the question of full citizenship for its newly freed black population. As a result, the mass of Southern blacks now faced the difficulty Northern blacks had confronted-that of a free people surrounded by many hostile whites. The Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 freed African Americans in rebel states, and after the Civil War, the Thirteenth Amendment emancipated all U.S.
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