Existing comment:
1863-1877
Reconstruction
Reconstruction refers to the process of reorganizing the southern states and readmitting them to the Union. It generally began once U.S. forces occupied a Confederate territory, and involved freeing local slaves and extending political rights to them. The rise of the Ku Klux Klan foreshadowed the difficulties that African Americans would face once the last Federal forces withdrew from the south in 1877, leaving blacks vulnerable to segregationist "Jim Crow" laws. |