Many people will argue that the social and political changes in the period between 1860 and 1877 culminated in a revolution. This time period, known as Reconstruction, made many advances in equality for Blacks in voting, politics, and the use of public facilities. There where three constitutional changes that made this revolution possible; they where the 13th, 14th, and 15th constitutional amendments.
The first constitutional change that occurred was the 13th amendment to the constitution, without this change none of the other amendments would have been possible. This was the amendment that made it illegal to hold a person in slavery. This could be called the spark that started the fire, because after this blacks started to receive many rights that they had never had. But these new right didn't come without many hardships. .
The blacks might have been freed from there slavery but that meant they had to go out and fend for themselves. And for a person with no education, no money, and no experience with anything but farming it is really hard to survive. To help aid these ex-slaves there where groups started like the Freedmen's Bureau. The Freedmen's Bureau had many goals like; to cloth blacks, supply them with surplus food from the war, give them job training, and provide them with a means of getting an education. Even though the Freedmen's Bureau had very good aspirations about helping the only good thing they did was help educate blacks.
Then in 1868 14th amendment to the constitution was adopted, this amendment gave Civil Rights to the ex-slaves. These newly granted civil rights for blacks where not taken very well by some groups of whites though. In many areas in the south what where called the slave codes where put back into affect but under a new name. These codes or laws where now called black codes and later became know as the Jim Crow Laws. One of the main reasons theses laws where put into affect was to make sure the blacks would not gain any kind of power what so ever, also the white farmers wanted a way to practically force the blacks to have to continue working there fields.