In the late 19th century African Americans were no longer slaves, but they were definitely not free. When we think of freedom today, we think of something totally different than what they endured in the late 19th century and early 20th century. For about 80 years, black southerners had to deal with these changes and hard times. Most would say that for those 80 years, it was worse than blacks being actual slaves. There are so many things that held down African Americans during this time. Some examples of this would be the involvement of the Jim Crow laws, not having the right to vote, and the lynching and peonage among African Americans. When becoming free, blacks desired independence the most. They wanted two freedoms: the freedom from whites, as well as the freedom to move wherever they wanted. They persevered to having their own schools and churches, while not having the consequences for these actions. Although the blacks thought these actions were possible, the white southerners had other ideas. During this time period, most of the south lived in poverty and about a 3rd were illiterate. When blacks became free, whites felt threatened of the once black slaves. Black people who worked in the mud and had nothing to their names, now trying to gain what the white man has. Due to this white southerners formed groups to attack and intimidated blacks, but the violence grow wide spread. This cased what we called the radical reconstruction. The radical reconstruction tried to bring the south to submission while protecting blacks. This brought forward the 14th amendment which stated that all citizens born or naturalized in the U.S. are citizens of the United States. Then came along the 15th amendment was passed that stated that black m... ... middle of paper ... ...ing that was wrong with this was that it was illegal. It was a corruption of the peonage laws. Peonage or debt servitude was outlawed by the federal government after the civil war, it meaning was peasantry, coming from Mexico. When dealing with peonage blacks would be falsely accused and quickly convicted, they were sentenced and charged fines and court fees, which they couldn’t pay. Black could do nothing as local whites paid the courts and took control of them. They would be bought from the courts by local whites then resoled for profit. The African Americans that were sold for profit would most likely sign a contract that would set a certain time laps in which they would then be free from their debt. The thing that was so wrong with these contract was within them they would give the owner the right to whip, confined and even trade them, if the debt was unpaid.
Groups of people soon received new rights. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act. It gave black Americans full citizenship and guaranteed them equal treatment. Also, it passed the Fourteenth Amendment to make sure that the Supreme Court couldn’t declare the Civil Rights Act unconstitutional. The amendment made blacks citizens of the United States and the states in which they lived. Also, states were forbidden to deprive blacks of life, liberty, or property without due process. Additionally, blacks could not be discriminated by the law. If a state would deprive blacks of their rights as citizens, it’s number of congressional representatives would be reduced. The Civil Rights Act as well as the Fourteenth Amendment affected both the North and the South.
In the nineteenth century African-Americans were not treated as people. The white men and women treated them as pieces of property rather than people. Throughout this time those men and women fought for their own independence and freedoms. However none of these freedoms happened until the late 1800’s. The black men and women of this time never got the opportunities to earn money or have property of their own.
Free blacks from the south were facing many situations from the whites from the Jim Crow laws. The Jim Crow laws were to prevent free blacks and other non-whites from being able to vote and have a voice within the government. Laws and statements were established such as the Grandfather Clause, which would prevent anyone whose grandfather could not vote from voting. Since the majority of blacks grandfathers did not vote and was not even free, free blacks in the south were denied the right to vote. Free blacks were now being denied any privilege that non slaves (whites) already had. Their "freedom" was only from slavery, now they realized that they were still a slave to the world. Also during this time blacks were being discriminated against and the lynchings of blacks were occurring. Blacks were becoming endangered and feared for their lives.
After a war that claimed the lives of more men than that of all other wars combined, much of the country was left in ruins, literally and figuratively. Dozens of towns in the South had been burned to the ground. Meanwhile, the relations between the North and South had crumbled to pieces. Something needed to be done so that the country could once again be the United States of America, not the Divided States of America. The years from 1865 to 1877 were a time of rebuilding – the broken communities and the broken relations. This time period was known as Reconstruction. Reconstruction was a failure on the basis that the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments that were passed should have given protection and freedom to the African American people, instead, it actually hurt them because the laws were not enforced, and eventually lead to the organization of white supremacy terrorist groups.
Blacks in the south were not free. Southern blacks were forced to work all day for no pay. As soon as the sunrise the slaves had to work until sunset. Blacks in the south had no choice to take a day off or not.
First off there was the Ku Klux Klan better known as the KKK. This was a group of people who wore robes and masks. They pretended to be the ghosts of confederate soldiers. These people were scared of changes and the rising rights of African Americans. This was also in the north not just the south. Poverty was a big thing after reconstruction. It was a problem before reconstruction but it got bigger after. Poverty was a global issue in the south where a lot of white southerners had lost their land. This caused them to be trapped in a little poverty cycle. African Americans had little job
The end of slavery brought new expectations for all African Americans, whether they had been slaves or not. Taking advantage of the new choices that freedom opened, they tried to create independent lives for themselves, and they developed social institutions that helped to define black communities. African Americans also expected political and economic equality. Few were able to acquire land of their own- a significant constraint on their economic choices- and most became either wage laborers or sharecroppers. Having no land, no tools, and no money, the freed slaves had only their personal labor to sell.
Slave families were sold to several different plantations often far away from each other. Children, parents, husbands, and wives. They were almost always separated. Reconstruction allowed families to stay together in their own homes (Reconstruction, 1863-1866). Before Reconstruction, when Blacks were forced to live on plantations, it was frowned upon to show any of their own culture and religion. Now they could let their cultures bloom freely without repercussion. When families were enslaved men couldn 't protect their families anymore. Masters would abuse their women slaves and do with them what they pleased. The enslaved women 's’ husbands would have n control, they felt powerless. With Reconstruction, black men can protect their families. This lets them regain and express their manhood by being the man of the house with their family. A lot of white communities in the south were not in favor of Blacks having their own homes with their families. This caused massacres like from Lucy Tibbs Testimony, “I saw them surround the houses. The fire. When the fire got very hot I saw men, women, and children break out and run to the bayou. They shot at them as fast as they could while they were running. They wounded some of them but did not kill any except that girl. When the house she was in on fire she ran out and just as she turned the corner they shot her in the mouth… Both houses were burned”(Lucy Tibbs).
The 15th Amendment states that “The right of the citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude”. This gave African Americans the right to vote. The amendment seemed to signify the fulfillment of all promises to African Americans. The 15th Amendment is also categorized as one of the three constitutional amendments. In the beginning thirty-seven states ratified the 15th Amendment. The first of these states to ratify the 15th Amendment was Nevada. To disenfranchise African Americans, devices were written into the constitutions of former confederate states. In 1869, when the New Year began, the republicans were anxious to introduce a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the black man’s right to vote. Congress considered the amendment that was proposed for two months. When congress approved a compromise, the amendment did not specifically mention the black man. The struggle for and against ratification hung on what blacks and other political interests would do. The Republican-dominated Congress passed the First Reconstruction Act. This act divided the South into five military districts and outlining how ...
Reconstruction was intended to give African-Americans the chance for a new and better life. Many of them stayed with their old masters after being freed, while others left in search of opportunity through education as well as land ownership. However this was not exactly an easy task. There were many things standing in their way, chiefly white supremacists and the laws and restrictions they placed upon African-Americans. Beginning with the 'black codes' established by President Johnson's reconstruction plan, blacks were required to have a curfew as well as carry identification. Labor contracts established under Johnson's Reconstruction even bound the 'freedmen' to their respective plantations. A few years later, another set of laws known as the 'Jim Crow' laws directly undermined the status of blacks by placing unfair restrictions on everything from voting rights all the way to the segregation of water fountains. Besides these restrictions, the blacks had to deal with the Democratic Party whose northern wing even denounced racial equality. As a result of democratic hostility and the Republican Party's support of Black suffrage, freedmen greatly supported the Republican Party.
The radical reconstruction era in the south saw the emergence of African americans in political offices, however there was no real black supremacy and the whites ultimately had the overwhelming power. The 13th, 14th and 15th ammendments to the constitution were ratified or passed during the era which saw the abolishing of slavery, civil rights granted to all people born in the United States and the right to vote to citisens of any race, colour and religion. The latter summed up by Kenneth Stamp ‘ if it was worth four years of civil war to save the union, it was worth a few years of radical reconstruction to give the American negro the ultimate promise of equal civil and political rights’.
Prior to the Civil War, African Americans were treated as second class individuals. They lacked the freedom and equality they sought for. To the African Americans, the Civil War was a war of liberation. Contrary to what African Americans perceived, Southerners viewed the war as an episode of their journey to salvation. Southern lands may have been destroyed and depleted, but the South was persistent that their racial order would not be disrupted. To most, the goals of the Reconstruction era were to fully restore the Union, and to some, grant emancipation and liberty to former slaves. Although the newly freedmen gained various rights and liberties, their naïve dreams of complete equality and liberation collapsed due to the immense resistance of the South.
Many strides in the African American journey towards freedom and equality came about in the mid-nineteenth century. The domestic slave trade separated families and created an even greater hatred toward slave owners by blacks. African Americans gained some semblance of freedoms through the task-based labor systems in some Southern regions and freemen fought for equal pay while serving admirably as Union soldiers during the Civil War. Freemen in the North experienced racial discrimination and segregation, but established Free Societies which were crucial in advancing the rights for equality with prominent whites. Although not completely equal to whites by the end of the century, African Americans, as a whole, were headed in the right direction.
The United States population in 1850 was 31,000,000. Fourteen percent of that was African American. And then ten percent of the African American population was free. But what exactly does freedom mean in terms of what they could do? The north is commonly viewed as being anti-slavery and keeping blacks free. Three regions make up the North - New England, the Mid-Atlantic states, and the Midwest. In total, these states had a free black population of 221 thousand, which is surprisingly a smaller number than the number of free blacks in the south - 250 thousand. But just how free were free blacks, especially in the anti-slavery north? It depends on what "free" means. All people supposedly had access to three general freedoms - there's political
After Andrew Johnson’s veto, Congress passed the Reconstruction Act, which temporarily divided the South into five military districts and outlined how governments based on universal (male) suffrage were to be organized” (Reconstruction History.com) These laws required all southern states to ratify the 14th Amendment. The 14th amendment stated, ”All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside” (Chrisman, Jerry, and Stanbery Foster III). This granted “Equal Protection” to former slaves before they could rejoin the Union. Radical Republicans thought blacks should be entitled to the same rights and opportunities as whites. Reconstruction achieved many ideal things that people did not think would happen. “Among the other achievements of Reconstruction were the South’s first state-funded public school systems, more equitable taxation legislation, laws against racial discrimination in public transport and accommodations and ambitious economic development programs (including aid to railroads and other enterprises)” (“Reconstruction” History.com). By these achievements of Reconstruction, it created a better life for many people in the