Civil Rights, refer to positive actions of government that aim to create equal conditions for all America citizens. The term is often associated with the protection of minority groups, such as African-Americans.
By 1865, the situation for the black community in America had changed drastically. This was due to the Emancipation Proclamation Act in 1863, which came into play in 1865. This Act released 3.5 million slaves in the southern states of America but did not release the slaves in the northern states. Any freed slaves were faced with unemployment, discrimination and a lack of education, this meant that they found it extensively difficult to find work to provide for their families. This essay believes that the period 1865-96 in America was a huge step for Civil Rights due to the fact that this period gave 3rd generation slaves a grasp of freedom, changing their mind sets as they now wanted to seek the freedom that they had briefly experienced. Historian, Eric Foner believed that Abraham Lincoln was a revolutionary; Lincoln was the first person to begin to change people’s opinion on slavery even though he had very little support.
Although the black community in the south of America were now free from the shackles of slavery, they still faced huge problems socially. The main opposition that they faced came from the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), founded in June 1865 by James Crowe, a Confederate Army Veteran. The Klan began by simply trying to gain publicity through sponsoring local football teams and through adverts in newspapers. After the Reconstruction Act began the Klan turned to violence and terrorism. The Klan’s membership increased rapidly, by 1867 it had 12,000 members in Alabama alone. The KKK whipped, shot, lynched, robbed, raped and black people or any Republican supporters/members in the South. Influential black people were targeted, for example Richard Burke, who was one of the first people to write down the impacts of slavery. Also, the Jim Crow laws...