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servitude and underm<strong>in</strong>ed a central tenet<br />
of white supremacy. With their military<br />
tra<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g, black soldiers “represented both a<br />
viable alternative source of community<br />
leadership and a direct physical threat to<br />
white supremacy when they came home.” 18<br />
With their military tra<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g, black<br />
soldiers were seen as “a viable<br />
alternative source of community<br />
leadership and a direct physical<br />
threat to white supremacy<br />
when they came home.”<br />
After a brief period, the victorious federal<br />
government gave up on Reconstruction<br />
and withdrew from the South <strong>in</strong> 1877, abandon<strong>in</strong>g its duty to protect newly freed black<br />
people and enforce the citizenship rights they now held. Exploitative systems of convict<br />
leas<strong>in</strong>g and sharecropp<strong>in</strong>g impeded economic progress and returned many black people<br />
to a status very similar to slavery. President Andrew Johnson took office follow<strong>in</strong>g President<br />
L<strong>in</strong>coln’s assass<strong>in</strong>ation and adopted policies that opposed black vot<strong>in</strong>g rights, restored<br />
Confederates’ citizenship, and allowed Southern former rebels to reestablish white supremacy<br />
and dom<strong>in</strong>ate black people with impunity. 19<br />
The 54th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry at the Second Battle of Fort Wagner, South Carol<strong>in</strong>a, 1863.<br />
11
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