Historical+Relevance

Seeds of Racism
On the eve of the Civil War racial tensions were strong. Southerners believed that black people were inferior to the white race. They were seen only as workers and servants. Forcing blacks into slavery can be attributed to the major creation of such strong racial barriers. By creating a slave trafficking business, whites saw themselves as the higher authority and the more the business grew, the more they distanced themselves from equality to blacks.

//President Johnson kicking the Freedmen's Bureau//

At the conclusion of the Civil War many Southerners who had owned slaves were unwilling to accept that the people they once owned were now considered the same status as they were. They were not about to change their views just by the creation of a document that said that blacks had the same rights. Years and years of slave ownership had enlarged their pride and sense of superiority to the point where they were no longer able to see equality in the two races.

__1861- Stephens Cornerstone Speech__

Stephen felt that, "foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the Negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery-subordination to the superior race-is his natural and nor- mal condition." This statement follows applause by his listeners, and can portay the Southerners feelings about slavery and ultimately how they viewed African Americans. This is another example of how racially separated the two races became over the Civil War duration.

__Creation of the Ku Klux Klan__



Founded in 1866, shortly after the Civil War, consisted of mostly bitter Southerners who were unalbe to accept the rising position of blacks in America. This highly violent group made life for black seem as if they had been forced back into slavery. They brutalized African Americans and ruined the governments efforts to try and gain rights for blacks.

P5 SKopp