Racism During The Reconstruction Era

I. Introduction Reconstruction is mostly viewed as a failed endeavor. After it ended in 1877, its achievements in the South began to fade quickly, and Jim Crow laws allowed white Southerners to regain their dominance over the African American population. Successful Reconstruction would have necessitated the rebuilding of Southern society in such a way that African Americans would not just no longer be slaves, but be at an equal standing to their fellow white citizens. However, no such society emerged: from “black codes” being issued in the former confederate states to the KKK violently oppressing African Americans, there is an abundance of evidence for racism in the South during the Reconstruction Era. It is important to also mention, though,

Evangelicals, who had recently experienced what historians call the Second Great Awakening, which greatly increased their numbers and invigorated their zealotry, were heavily invested in abolition in the antebellum years. After their goal had been achieved, they swept into the defeated South to help in the Reconstruction effort, with the plight of freed slaves close to their hearts. Horace James was one of them; but as Patricia C. Clarke reveals in her book on the Roanoke Island Colony, of which James was the superintendent, he, “[l]ike many of his fellow evangelicals, [. . .] did not believe in social equality between the races”. Instead, he believed in a God-given social order, guided by “eternal laws”, in which African Americans would likely become “a nation of servants” upon finding their place in society . Furthermore, James and other Evangelicals assumed that the freedmen could not care for themselves and thus distrusted them with their liberties, which kept them in a state of dependency. James saw the African American’s “elevation as a race” as a task given to him by God. Thus, he viewed himself as a savior of the African American race, bringing them “liberty and laws, art and enterprises, learning and pure religion”. This view was common among Evangelicals coming to the South who were often engaged in pedagogical exercises, trying to impose their Northern, white values upon the former slaves while simultaneously training them in religion. Men like James viewed African Americans as “poor creatures” in need of salvation, not as independent human beings deserving of rights and respect. Thus, this savior complex amounted to nothing more than a paternalistic and