Reconstruction should have been a happy and healing time for our country. The intention of this era was to rebuild the South and bring both the North and the South together again. However, as if the United States hadn't seen enough fighting during the Civil War, Reconstruction brought even more chaos. This time it promised a new life for African Americans in the South. Newly freed blacks anticipated many opportunities they had never dreamed of before, “[yet] that promising dawn did not usher in a bright new day of educational, social, and political possibilities” (Butchart, 2010, pp. 153-154). . Instead, whites have proven to be incapable of matching African Americans on all three previously mentioned levels. Consequently, as Butchart states, from the time of slavery, through Reconstruction, and until redemption, African Americans fought for literacy (2012, p. 153). Even as African Americans attempted to educate themselves to enter “white” society, many whites opposed any form of education for these newly freed people. The idea of ​​white supremacy (Fredrickson, 1981) transformed the Reconstruction era into an assault on a dream (Butchart, 2010, p. 154). Some whites even went so far as to state “'if you teach Negroes, you are no better than a Negro yourself'” (Butchart, 2010, p. 158). To hide their racist ways, whites claimed that the reason freed people could not acquire an education was because a freed person was mentally incapable of learning or simply too lazy to fight for an education. The white population knew that African Americans could one day mix with each other if they were able to learn. Therefore, whites did everything they could to keep blacks away from any form of violence. Although “Reconstruction was never an exclusively political affair” (Prince, ????, p.19), the lack of inclusion in politics kept African Americans from fully enjoying their newfound freedom and entering society. Although this is a false statement, the black race is said to have never asserted or maintained its right to be a people (Fredrickson, 1981). For when a Negro asserted himself, he was sure to be pushed back to the lower level to which the white man felt he belonged. Republicans claimed that the entire race should be exterminated because it was an obstacle to their party, the white man's party (Fredrickson, 1981). Even more, in Fredrickson's work, Reconstruction, in the sense of rebuilding the South and allowing African Americans to join white society, was considered an attempt to overthrow the white man's rule as a whole (1981). Despite the racist attitudes of white men, freed people still had, and deserved, some rights that were ultimately denied to them (Fredrickson, 1981). It is still true today that races, like individuals, may have differed in their capabilities during Reconstruction, but this should not have affected the basic rights of the freed black man. Once again, white Americans knew that, like education, political involvement would help freed African Americans enter what they felt was just their society..