The time following the end of the civil war should have been one of celebration. A long and painful conflict had ended, and the terrible crime of slavery had finally been stopped in the US. Many optimistic Americans dubbed this time period "the progressive era" and began pushing for equal rights for different disenfranchised groups.
Sadly, rather than progressing smoothly forward, the country entered a volatile and often violent period of transition. In many southern (and some northern) states, backlash against newly freed slaves came in the form of difficulty finding gainful employment, discriminatory state laws known as "black codes," and the sadistic hate group known as the Ku Klux Klan.
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