"The failure of Reconstruction should not be judged by its outcome but its aftermath." Evaluate this statement using your knowledge of the social,...

This statement means that while several laws were created during Reconstruction, they had a limited effect. For example, the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution were ratified during Reconstruction. These amendments ended slavery, gave all citizens basic civil rights, and allowed African-American (and all other American-born) men to vote.

However, these laws were largely ignored at the end of Reconstruction and afterward. While some African-Americans attained political office on the state and even...

This statement means that while several laws were created during Reconstruction, they had a limited effect. For example, the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution were ratified during Reconstruction. These amendments ended slavery, gave all citizens basic civil rights, and allowed African-American (and all other American-born) men to vote.

However, these laws were largely ignored at the end of Reconstruction and afterward. While some African-Americans attained political office on the state and even federal level during Reconstruction, in the aftermath of Reconstruction, they were largely disenfranchised in the south. In some parts of the south, as few as 5% of eligible African-Americans voted well into the 1960s. In addition, many African-Americans were denied basic civil rights, and they were subject to segregation and Jim Crow legislation until the modern Civil Rights era of the 1950s and 1960s. "Separate but equal" schools and other facilities were ruled legal in the 1896 Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson. In addition, African-Americans did not, for the most part, have access to equality in employment or land ownership. The modern Civil Rights Movement was aimed at rectifying the wrongs that endured in the aftermath of Reconstruction.