The Transition from Slavey to Freedom
The transition from slavery to freedom was as amazing as it was complicated. Newly freed African Americans experienced both joy and disappointment as they established themselves as free persons. Freed people frequently encountered violent resistance to their efforts to become paid workers and active citizens. Many white southerners refused to accept former slaves as free persons. Fortunately for the African Americans, they didn’t give up. These freed people took advantage of all the political, economic, religious, and social opportunities that Reconstruction offered them. The church became the focus of black community life after the emancipation, blacks formed their own churches pastured by their own ministers. Education now also arose for the blacks due to the Emancipation Proclamation. On March 3, 1865, Congress created what is known as the Freedmen’s Bureau, in which Oliver O. Howard led. Many of these freedmen were freed from slavery, in other words, they were unskilled, illiterate, and had no money or property. The Freedmen’s Bureau purpose was to provide clothing, medical care, food and education to both freedmen and white refugees. The bureau failed in all other areas except teaching blacks how to read. The Bureau expired in 1872 because President Johnson and Southerners despised it. For this reason the Civil Rights Bill was passed in March 1866 by Congress which gave blacks the privilege of American citizenship. Moments later Congress feared that Southerners might repeal the Civil Rights Law, so they passed the 14th Amendment. The amendment gave civil rights, including citizenship, to the freedmen. Reduced proportionately the representation of a state in Congress and in the Electoral College if it denied blacks on the ballot. Disqualified from federal and state offices former Confederates who, as federal officeholders, had once sworn to support the Constitution of the United States, and lastly guaranteed the federal debt, while the Union assumed