Celebrating 150 Years of The Civil War

The Civil War was perhaps the bloodiest war America has ever fought (620,000 dead, more Americans were killed than all of the country’s wars until Vietnam combined). It released 4 million African Americans from slavery, and nearly broke up America. The Reconstruction period after this war started the Ku Klux Klan (a terrorist organization targeting African Americans), and caused the Southern States (Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia) to become “the nation’s No. 1 economic problem” (Franklin Roosevelt).

The African American population in the Southern states (they used to be the majority) fell exponentially due to the Jim Crow Laws, Ku Klux Klan, etc. Nowadays, the Southern States now caught up with the rest of the country and the blacks are starting to migrate back to the South. The Radical Republicans during the Reconstruction period passed the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments. The 13th abolished slavery, 14th guaranteed anyone born or naturalised in the US a citizen, and 15th all men (white and black, but not women) are allowed to vote. Grant passed the Civil Rights Act, which gave African Americans protection from the Federal Government against States. But the 14th and 15th amendments weren’t upheld, and states started passing laws forcing segregation (which forced a Civil Rights movement and another Civil Rights Act a hundred years later). 

After the Civil War is took a long time before another southern president was elected (Johnson in 1964). After that, more southern presidents were elected (Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton). Today, the blacks in the South tend to vote for Democrats (and in the rest of the country) while the whites tend to vote for Republicans. Our first African American president, Barack Obama, was elected partly due to the rise in African American population. The 2010 census results came out and said the white population was overall decreasing while the minorities grew (blacks grew by 37%!). In the end, blacks and the Southern states are being reaccepted into the greater community.