Well before the last
Federal occupation troops left the South at the end of Reconstruction
in 1877, oppression had already deeply eroded the few social and economic
gains blacks acheived after the Civil War. Organizations like the Klu
Klux Klan terrorized or killed African Americans who resisted the constraints
of racisim.
Poverty, customs and
laws prevented the newly freed slaves from buying land after the Civil
War, Many returned to work for their old masters as sharecroppers, but
dishonest treatement by many landlords and lack of education kept African
Americans in economic slavery.
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