The Reconstruction Amendments came during the post-Civil War era, known as the
Reconstruction. These laws the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments of the U.S Constitution.
These laws abolished slavery, recognized African-Americans as citizens if they were born
here, have them equal rights and protection under the law and allowed free black men to
vote. Even though the men were given the right to vote, officials and law enforcement
made it so that was nearly impossible for them cast a vote. There were polling taxes (most
could not pay the amount) and quizzes meant to set them up for failure. It seemed that
matter what, there was always another stop from voting. After 8 Amendments, Congress
finally ratified the 24th amendment, throwing all of these practices out of the window, and
finally making the playing field leveled, the best that they could.
The Jim Crow laws originally laws were originally created to disable former slaves to be
able to have the same as the whites in the area. The term Jim Crow was originally a term
used to describe black people. It was from the character “Jim Crow” played by Thomas
“Daddy’ Rice. It later evolved to describe any law that “restricted the rights and
opportunities of black people”. These laws stated that segregation was legal between the
two races as long as they had the same rights and opportunities, as the white people, which
wasn’t even the case the majority of the time. These laws restricted where black people
could and couldn’t go in the southern states and in some northern states. The “Black
