Why did life for African-Americans in the South change after the Civil War?

The major
change in the lives of African-Americans after the Civil War resulted from the end of slavery.
With the Confederacy in ruins, slavery was outlawed with the Thirteenth Amendment, ratified in
1865, and thus the legal and social status of African-Americans was permanently altered. But the
changes they experienced went beyond the legal abolition of slavery. Without land or capital,
hundreds of thousands of African-Americans were thrust into a labor market with only their
skills to offer. Many wound up in...