What problems did formerly enslaved people face in their efforts to improve their lives

Off the top of my head I can think of the fact they they were oppressed, especially in the south. Diners would serve food to them, they could only use bathrooms for black people, couldn't drink at drinking fountains, etc, etc. They were also murdered pretty constantly too because everyone in the south hated them. In court they were almost always guilty of charges held against them, even if there was blatant evidence that they weren't the ones that did it. I mean all kinds of horrible, horrible stuff that they had to put up with in their every day lives. 

The second , larger puritan colony of massachusetts bay was conceived as a "city upon a hill". but it also struggled with internal turmoil like the salem witch trials and external conflicts like king philip's (metacom's) war.