Assignment task: Race, Politics, and Reconstruction
As we read in our chapter, violence was prevalent in Texas during Reconstruction, and African Americans were more often the victims than whites. Many who avoided racial violence still suffered economic oppression and poverty. However, opportunities also existed, and for a time successful African Americans achieved prominence in politics, and to a lesser extent, business and agriculture. In truth, Reconstruction experience differed, person to person and community to community. Questions remain as to why. How pervasive was the violence, and to what degree did it undermine efforts of the freedmen to reconstruct their lives after slavery? How real was the opportunity for freedmen to assume positions of leadership, or even to become masters of their own lives and destiny?