Was There More Of A Positive Impact On Black People Before Or After The Civil War?
As one of America’s most fierce and bloody wars, the Civil War is never to be forgotten, specifically by the race of African American citizens who remembered what their ancestors, as slaves, did to turn the values, laws, and attitude of America upside down.
Although blacks after the Civil War enjoyed freedoms and privileges that their slave ancestors could only dream of, they faced increasing discrimination during the end of the 19th Century and the beginning of the 20th Century. They could vote, hold office and attend school. New Orleans, Louisiana, was one of the more integrated cities in the South. It desegregated its streetcars in 1867, began experimenting with integrated public schools in 1869, legalized interracial marriage between 1868 and 1896, elected a total of 32 black state senators and 95 state representatives, and had integrated juries, public boards, and police departments. Despite these major improvements, life for Southern blacks were far from perfect.
