- The years directly following the Civil War, a period known as Reconstruction, were meant to heal our fractured nation and help Black Americans establish new lives after slavery was abolished.

While some of our nation's most important laws were enshrined during this time, concessions were also made that led to a rollback of liberties and an outbreak of violence leaving long lasting scars on our nation.

Reconstruction began about a year after President Lincoln freed all slaves in the Confederacy with the Emancipation Proclamation.

His proposed plan would have forced 1/10 of a rebel state's pre-war population to declare an oath of loyalty before being allowed back into the Union.

It did not receive broad support.

After President Lincoln's assassination, his successor, Andrew Johnson, offered a pardon to all Southern whites, aside from Confederate leaders and some wealthy plantation owners, and allowed them to create their own state governments.

Southern states responded by enacting laws that continued to limit Black Americans' political and economic freedom.

These would become known as Jim Crow laws and would continue for many decades to come.

In late 1865, the 13th Amendment of the Constitution was ratified, formally abolishing slavery in the United States.

A year later, Congress passed laws extending the life of the Freedman's Bureau which oversaw the transition from slavery to freedom, and the Civil Rights Act which defined all persons born on U.S. soil as natural citizens with equal rights before the law.

However, for many reasons, including a strong belief in states rights and personal racist convictions, President Johnson vetoed these bills.

Congress overruled Johnson's veto on the Civil Rights Act, and later that year enshrined the ideas of birthright citizenship and equal protection under the law into the Constitution with the 14th Amendment.

Soon after, the 15th Amendment was passed prohibiting states from restricting the right to vote on the basis of race, color, and previous status as a slave.

While all of these amendments sound great in theory, in practice, through our nation's restrictive voting laws for women and individual states' use of Jim Crow laws, Black Americans would continue to face systemic discrimination and voter suppression decades after these amendments were ratified, and it would be almost a century for them to be able to fully participate in civic life.

By 1870, African Americans made up the vast majority of the dominant Southern Republican Party and were serving at all levels and positions of government from local sheriffs to federal and state congressmen.

Still, their economic mobility stalled as President Johnson rolled back an initiative that would give former slaves land taken from farmers during the Civil War in order to begin a new life.

In addition, fueled by racist ideologies, the Black community's newly gained political power was met with bitterness from many of Reconstructions opponents, especially white Southerners.

White supremacist groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, began to target Black Americans who were asserting their constitutional rights.

During the 1870s, Reconstruction began to diminish.

The Supreme Court severely limited the federal government's ability to enforce Reconstruction laws, and by the end of the decade, troops had been ordered to return to their barracks.

The period of federal protection for former slaves was over.

Systemic discrimination and segregation was written into the laws of many states, especially in the South.

The 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments remained in place, but were weakened by state laws that found ways around them and continued to oppress Black Americans.

Senator Charles Sumner called them sleeping giants that went into hibernation, waiting for new generations to pick up the fight.

Slavery remains one of the original sins of our nation and one that Reconstruction was meant to begin to make right.

Because our country was unable to properly fulfill its promise to protect the rights of those who were formerly enslaved, many of the divisions that led to the Civil War only deepened after the fighting stopped.

While the civil rights movements of the '60s eventually did lead to major civic wins for Black Americans, our nation continues to struggle with its history of violence and oppression towards its most marginalized groups.