nterested in balancing the budget, cutting welfare costs, and spending on the military then dealing with the complicated cycle of urban poverty. Though, the two Reconstructions held out great promise and hope to Blacks in America, both failed to achieve their broad goals and in subsequent decades much of their accomplishments washed away. Yet, both brought significant permanent changes. The First Reconstruction ended slavery and the second ended legal segregation. But just as the First Reconstruction disintegrated by the 1890's because of the failure of the federal government to create a viable economic base for freed slaves, the Second Reconstruction did not result in a fully integrated society because it too failed to fundamentally change the economic condition of poor Blacks. The Black experience in America is a contradiction for there is no one black experience just as there is no one white experience. In the same way, the failure of the First and Second Reconstructions was caused not by one event but by many. The failings of these Reconstructions are not as simple as racism, politics, or individual events; to single out one to explain such complicated periods gives an incomplete picture of both history and the nature of racism. The leaders of both the First and Second Reconstructions fell into this trap and sought to solve racial inequality through political means. Their failure to see the economic dimensions of racism was key to the demise of the First and Second Reconstructions. While far from the movements only failing it is a factor that has been ignored by historians such as C. Vann Woodward and William Julius Wilson. Americastill has a long way to go to reach a place where "little Black boys and Black girls will be able to join hands with little White boys and White girls as sisters and brothers." We are still a divided society- economically if not legally. We are divided between the inner city ghettoes of Sou...
