What I learned from today's EOTO presentations

 What I learned about the Positives and negatives of the Reconstruction era. I learned that the 13th Amendment immediately freed over 100,000 slaves from the states of Kentucky to Delaware and that this Amendment was a response to President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Which was brought on January 1,1863 where Lincoln gave the authority to employ African Americans in a military capacity. 

Freedmen’s Bureau, this act was considered one of the key factors of the Reconstruction era. Where it created a great improvement for the lives of a lot of freed slaves by providing protection. Including food, shelter, land, and other hospitality aspects. They also provided school establishments and offered legal assistance. Though their major goal was to give slaves rights and the ability to participate in political parties. 

The reconstruction policies are known as “40 Acres and a Mule” would offer long-awaited economic justice to African Americans. Was a promise by Union General William T. Sherman during the civil war, freed slaves would be given 40 acres of land and a mule. 40 acres for the freed slaves to farm and a mule to pull plows. This started out as a good thing, but unfortunately shortly after; the 40,000 freed slaves who were given this gift were stripped of it when President Johnson came to office. He reversed the order and returned the land to their former white owners, and till this time not one person has been given 40 acres and a mule. So now this is to represent the failure of Reconstructions' promise. 

We also learned about the original KKK. Shortly after the civil war ended a violent hate group surfaced in Tennessee around 1865. Where a group known as the Ku Klux Klan used hatred violence and murder to maintain white supremacy. The original group at this time disappeared but was then established again in 1915 and unfortunately to this day. Their peak of members had reached a toll to over 4 million members. Now over the years, the number has significantly decreased but they still did a great amount of damage to America. They appear to have a significant amount of pride in their ideology standards by being proud of what they've done in history. The current number of known members in the KKK is estimated to be around 5,000 members.