While it is true that this bureau did a fair amount of work initially in improving such conditions, the effects were not long lived nor nearly as effective as they had been hoped and expected by many, former slaves and white reformers alike (Sage 2007). The idea of Reconstruction was far from settled when the Bureau was set up, and Lincoln's assassination shortly thereafter caused even greater upheaval in Congress, making Reconstruction even more "up for grabs" than it had been since the war's inception (Sage 2007). Basically, though the Bureau was set up and certain other laws were passed that attempted to create opportunities for freed slaves, such measures lacked popular support in the South and the means for enforcement from the federal government, which was already stretched thin from the war (McElrath 2009).
The measures that did carry popular support, and so unfortunately became the true defining policies of the Reconstruction and the decades that followed, were the "black codes' passed in many Southern states. Though these codes were mainly a logical outgrowth of the institutional racism that had permitted the enslavement of people of color for several centuries, they were also fueled by the bitterness Southerners felt at losing the war and being forced to submit to laws imposed form an authority they had rejected (Sage 2007). These black codes, which developed into the later "Jim Crow" laws, were simply a way to make the racism and
Not only was racism made an official part of Southern law and society, but the black codes also exerted the same type of control over African-Americans that slavery had imposed. Black codes restricted everything from free speech to marriage rights to the type of work that freed slaves could engage in and who they were allowed to conduct business with (McElrath 2009). Segregation was almost a non-issue, as it was simply taken for granted that freed slaves would not be allowed equal access to the same places and amenities as whites (McElrath 2009). The end result was that despite the efforts made by the Freedmen's Bureau, freed slaves found themselves in a land of little opportunity, with many claiming -- quite rightly -- that they still weren't truly free (Sage 2007). Many claim that opportunity is still vastly unequal in this country, and the roots of the problem are found in the failures of Reconstruction.
References
McElrath, J. (2009). "The Reconstruction Era: An Overview." Accessed 20 April 2009. http://afroamhistory.about.com/cs/reconstruction/a/reconstruction.htm
Sage, H. (2007). "Reconstruction." Accessed 20 April 2009. http://www.sagehistory.net/reconstruction/topics/recon.html
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