After the Civil War, America looked very different. The wealthy in the South had previously been used to life on the plantation full of luxuries and power. After the Civil War, they were banned from voting or holding any political power. Their large estates were in pieces, and many African Americans refused to work for them. Many of the poor white farmers were now competing with the freed blacks for jobs. Freed slaves were finally seeing some hope. When once they were born into slavery, they could now vote and own land. There were many positive changes: In some areas of the South, blacks could ride on trains and eat in restaurants with whites. Institutions were created, such as schools, orphanages, and public relief projects, in order to improve the lives of free blacks.

Maybe the biggest change for African Americans was the new representation with holding political office. Black men were taking on jobs, such as sheriffs and judges. Some were elected to city council and school boards. From 1867-1877, sixteen black men were elected to Congress. The first was Hiram Revels from Mississippi. Revels became the first African-American Senator in 1870. In 1872, Louisiana saw the first black governor with PBS Pinchback. Locally, around 600 blacks served in legislation. But unfortunately, this wasn’t enough to help most blacks in the South.

African Americans were disadvantaged economically. For most, the only skills they possessed were only useful on a plantation. A system called sharecropping was created in the South. With this system, wealthy whites would allow blacks and poor whites to live on and work the land. They would sometimes provide all the tools, food, seed, and shelter they needed. In exchange, they gave the landowner half of all the proceeds of the harvest. Most sharecroppers were in too much debt to the owners because they had to borrow and were charged too much for basic supplies. When the harvest came, the cost was more than the money they brought in, so they remained in debt. This was also because they focused on one cash crop, such as cotton, just when the cotton prices were falling. This system in many ways resembled slavery.

To the whites in the South, things were changing too much. They resented the high taxes they had to pay. Southerners were not bringing in enough money, and their economy suffered. They were disadvantaged and corruption began to take over. Men called "carpetbaggers" and "scalawags" came to the South to take advantage of this. A carpetbagger was a Northerner who tried to take advantage of the South and get rich by taking political office which Confederate whites previously held. These men traveled to the South with old raveled bags, called carpetbags. Scalawags were white men from the South who helped the carpetbaggers for political advantage.

New organizations were taking control based on hatred and fear. Out of this hatred for the black men came the Ku Klux Klan, the Knights of White Camelia, and the White Brotherhood. These groups wanted to put down and control the black community using violence and intimidation. They used violent tactics, such as killings, lynchings, rape, pillage, and terror. Many who wanted the whites to succeed and blacks to fail joined these groups. Many prominent members of society belonged to these groups, such as ministers, merchants, military officers, and other professionals. These men wore hoods, burned crosses, and even murdered to further their cause. These groups which took advantage and used violence were making the new South look much like the old. Other tactics used to keep blacks from advancing politically were used as well. Poll taxes, violence at the ballots, and literacy tests were used to keep African Americans from voting. The struggle for African Americans was very real and was just beginning.