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The Civil War wrought a revolution in the black's status, both in the North and in the South. It brought freedom, citizenship, and eventually, equal civil and political rights to all Negroes. It brought the rudiments of education to thousands of freedmen. The impetus of wartime change impelled the desegregation of schools and transportaion facilities in many parts of the North. Time was to show that the revolution in the Negro's status was not so complete as it appeared, but in 1865 the black man could look back on four years of startling and rapid change, and could look forward hopefully to acceptance as an equal in American life.
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