what was the biggest challenge in the nation faced in reconstruction and why was it the biggest challenge?
The biggest challenge faced during Reconstruction was the deep-seated racial animosity and resistance to change. The Civil War had abolished slavery and granted African Americans citizenship and voting rights, but many white Southerners were unwilling to accept these changes and were determined to maintain white supremacy.
This resistance to change manifested in various forms such as the rise of violent terrorist groups like the Ku Klux Klan, the enactment of Jim Crow laws which enforced segregation and disenfranchisement of African Americans, and the implementation of sharecropping and convict leasing systems that kept the newly freed slaves in a cycle of poverty and exploitation.
The challenge of overcoming this deep-seated racial animosity and achieving true equality and justice for African Americans proved to be the biggest challenge in Reconstruction because it required not only changes in laws and policies but also a fundamental shift in societal attitudes and beliefs. It would take decades of continued struggle, resistance, and activism before African Americans could fully exercise their rights and be treated as equal citizens in the United States.