After winning the American Civil War for Northern
States, Abraham Lincoln went about abolishing slavery in United States of America. The Congress and Senate passed three landmark
amendments attempting to change the fate of African Americans in that country. The 13th Amendment outlawed slavery, the 14th Amendment made blacks equal citizens, and 15th Amendment gave
them right to vote. In the next ten years
of Reconstruction,
many black leaders emerged to occupy positions in Senate and Congress. It almost looked, for a while, that this new
nation would correct the mistakes of its past and reverse the effects of
slavery it imposed on black people. However,
the whites of America were not ready to give blacks an equal status in their
country. They started to dilute these
amendments by creating a notion called ‘separate but equal’. They imposed segregation in the country
through a series of measures called Jim Crow laws.
It started with disenfranchising many blacks, then
creating separate schools, separate seating in travel and restaurants, thereby institutionalizing
discrimination. They created two
Americas, one for the privileged which was mostly white, and the other was for
the underprivileged which was mostly black.
The Jim Crow laws completely negated the three amendments passed during
Lincoln’s times.
