Open Letter to President Mckinley

In an "Open letter to President McKinley"the colored people of Massachusetts were trying to address the massive outbreaks of violence against the blacks in the south. The issues the raise are the specific times and places that black people were trying to gather and protest the rights that were being violated and the violence that occurred and the total disregard of rights as citizens of the United States as written in the Constitution.The murders and racial unrest was caused by the state governments passing laws that prevented black people from living free as they were granted through the thirteenth and fourteenth amendments of the Constitution.Personally I believe that if the northern troops would have kept a military presence in the south and not allowed southern politicians to take office unless they seceded from the Union as did President Johnson who himself was a southern Democrat from Tennessee and a former slave owner would have prevented the state level politicians from creating laws such as the "Black Codes" causing all freedmen to live under oppressive laws that were not unlike slavery.The laws created by racist southern lawmakers only sought to take the freedom given to them by the "Emancipation Proclamation" and reduce them to second class citizens and make their lives a living hell subject to violence at the hands of violent white racists.I see the conditions of living that were forced on these people to be awful and unjust the only way it would have been different would be to have continued to keep the south under "Soldier Rule" which also meant "Martial Law". This would have resulted in a more peaceful and better living situation for all races and enforced the new way of living that the Civil War was fought for and many people's lives could have been saved.