Studied by 26 people
Reconstruction
(1865-1877)
- Federal government sought to reintegrate former Confederate states and to establish and protect the rights of free and formerly enslaved African Americans
- Granting them citizenship, equal rights, and political representation
13th Amendment
(1865)
- Officially abolished slavery, except as a punishment for a crime.
14th Amendment
(1868)
- Defined the principle of birthright citizenship in the United States and granted equal protection to all people.
- Overturned the Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857) Supreme Court decision and related state-level Black codes
15th Amendment
(1870)
Granted voting rights to Black men
Emancipation & Reconnecting With Kin
- After emancipation, African Americans were able to locate kin separated by the domestic slave trade
- Relied on newspapers, word of mouth, and help from the Freedmen's Bureau
Emancipation and Marriage
Thousands of formerly enslaved African American men and women sought to consecrate their unions through legal marriage when it became available to them.
Senator Hiram Revels
- Of African and Indigenous ancestry
- Was the first African American to serve in either house of the United States Congress
James Rapier
Founded Alabama's first Black-owned newspaper and became Alabama's second Black representative
Blanche K. Bruce
- Born enslaved
- First African American elected to serve a full term in the U.S. Senate
Joseph Rainey
- Born enslaved
- First African American to serve in the House of Representatives and to preside over a debate in the House
- Longest-serving Black lawmaker in Congress during Reconstruction
John Lynch
- Born enslaved
- Elected as the first African American Speaker of the Mississippi House of Representatives
- The only African American in the following century to represent Mississippi in the U.S. House of Representatives
The Christian Recorder
- Founded in 1852
- The official newspaper of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (the first Black denomination in the U.S.)
- The oldest continuously published African American newspaper in the U.S.
Special Field Orders No. 15
(1865)
- Issued by Union General William T. Sherman
- Aimed to redistribute ~400,000 acres of land between South Carolina and Florida to newly freed African American families in segments of 40 acres
Presidential Reconstruction & Black Codes
- (1865 & 1866)
- During Presidential Reconstruction, many state governments enacted Black codes—restrictive laws that undermined the newly gained legal rights of African Americans and controlled their movement and labor
- Black codes aimed to restore the social controls and surveillance of earlier slave codes
What did black codes do?
- Limited African Americans' options for property ownership
- Required them to enter into unfair labor contracts
- Many annual labor contracts provided very little pay
-> Those who tried to escape a labor contract were often whipped
-> Those without a labor contract could be fined or imprisoned for vagrancy
How did black codes disrupt African American families?
Allowed Black children to be taken by the state and forced to serve unpaid apprenticeships without their parents' consent
What happened to Special Field Orders No. 15 during Reconstruction?
- President Andrew Johnson revoked Special Field Orders No. 15
Results:
- Confiscated plantations were returned to their former owners or purchased by northern investors
- African Americans were evicted or shifted into sharecropping contracts
Sharecropping
- Landowners provided land and equipment to formerly enslaved people or poor White people
- Farmers were required to return a large share of the crops to the landowner, making economic advancement very difficult
Crop Liens
- Farmers who began with little or no cash received food, farming equipment, and supplies, borrowing against the future harvest
- Their harvested crops often did not generate enough money to repay the debt, leading them into a cycle of debt
Convict Leasing
- Southern prisons profited by hiring out African American men imprisoned for debt, false arrest, or other minor charges to landowners and corporations
- Prisoners worked without pay under conditions akin to those of slave labor
Circular No. 8 from the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1866.
Persons employing freed-people are forbidden to discharge them without payment
Compromise of 1877
Compromise that enables Rutherford B. Hayes to take office in return for the end of Reconstruction
State-level Segregation Laws
After the election of 1876 and the Compromise of 1877, some states began to rewrite their state constitutions to include segregation laws
How was black voting suppressed?
- Poll taxes
- Literacy tests
- Grandfather clauses -> (only allowed Americans that had ancestors that voted prior to 1870 or owned property to be allowed to vote)
What dangers did African Americans face following the end of Reconstruction?
- Acts of racial violence (e.g., lynching)
- Retaliation from former Confederates, political terrorist groups (e.g., Ku Klux Klan), and others who embraced white supremacist doctrine
Plessy v. Ferguson ("Separate but equal")
An 1896 Supreme Court decision that legalized state ordered segregation as long as the facilities were equal
Jim Crow Laws
- Local and state-level statutes passed primarily in the South under the protection of the Plessy v. Ferguson decision
- Limited African American men's right to vote
- Jim Crow-era segregation restrictions would not be overturned until the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s
The Nadir
- The period between the end of Reconstruction and the beginning of World War II
- The lowest point of American race relations
- Included some of the most flagrant public acts of racism (e.g., lynching and mob violence) in U.S. history
How did African American journalists and writers respond to violence during the nadir?
Highlighted the racism at the core of Southern lynch laws that sought to justify the rampant killing of Black people
How did African American activists respond to violence during the nadir?
- Responded to attacks on their freedom with resistance strategies, such as trolley boycotts
- Relied on sympathetic writers in the press to publicize the mistreatment and murder of African Americans
Rayford W. Logan
A Pan-Africanist and historian of the post-Reconstruction period, named this period "the nadir"
Ida B. Wells-Barnett
- Born into slavery
- Journalist, civil rights advocate, and feminist active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries
- Her writings described how lynching aimed to terrorize African Americans from seeking any form of advancement
- Took part in the Women's Suffrage movement
The Red Summer
- From 1917 to 1921 there was a proliferation of racial violence incited by white supremacists
- The acute period of tensions in 1919 is known as the "Red Summer"
What factors influenced racial violence during the Red Summer?
Summer of 1919:
- Global flu pandemic
- Competition for jobs
- Racial discrimination against Black World War I veterans
Tulsa Race Massacre
- 1921
- A mob of White residents and city officials incited the Tulsa race massacre, in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
- Destroyed more than 1,250 homes and businesses in Greenwood, AKA "Black Wall Street" -> one of the most affluent African American communities in the U.S
How did African Americans resist white supremacist attacks on their communities?
- Political activism
- Published accounts
- Armed self- defense.
What Influenced the Great Migration?
Racial discrimination + violence and a lack of economic opportunities in the South spurred the beginnings of the Great Migration
James Weldon Johnson
- An African American writer and activist
- Coined the term "Red Summer"
- Wrote "Lift Every Voice and Sing" (AKA Black National Anthem)
-> His brother, J. Rosamond Johnson, set the poem to music and it became known as the Black National Anthem
-> The poem acknowledges past sufferings, encourages African Americans to feel proud of their resilience and achievements, and celebrates hope for the future
"If We Must Die" - Claude McKay
In "If We Must Die," Jamaican poet Claude McKay, a key figure in the Harlem Renaissance, encouraged African Americans to preserve their dignity and fight back against anti-Black violence and discrimination.
Lynching in the Eyes of the Law
- U.S. Senate did not classify lynching as a hate crime until 2018
- It did not become a federal law until March 2022.
-> Murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till in 1955 demonstrates the longevity of lynching as a tactic of white supremacist violence
What was "the Veil?"
The symbol of "the Veil" in "The Souls of Black Folk" by W.E.B. Du Bois represents African Americans' separation from full participation in American society and struggle for self-improvement due to discrimination.
What was the "color line?"
- The metaphor of the "color line" refers to racial discrimination and legalized segregation that remained in the United States after the abolition of slavery
- Du Bois identified "the problem of the twentieth century as "the problem of the color line"
Double-consciousness
- Refers to the internal conflict experienced by subordinated groups in an oppressive society
- Gave African Americans a way to examine the unequal realities of American life
- Resulted from social alienation created through racism and discrimination
- Fostered agency, adaptation, and resistance
The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois
- Responded to the proliferation of lynching
- Each chapter opens with verses of spirituals, which Du Bois calls "Sorrow Songs"
Booker T. Washington
- Advocated for industrial education and training as a means of economic advancement and independence
- His speech at the Atlanta Cotton Exposition, led to Ida B. Wells labeling him an "Accommodationist"
Black Women and Participation in Society
Educators and activists called for women's education and suffrage to promote greater inclusion of Black women in American society.
What was the impact of African American literature, poetry, and music?
Encouraged African Americans and their cultural achievements (e.g., "Lift Every Voice and Sing")
"The Atlanta Exposition Address," by Booker T. Washington
- Appealed to a conservative audience and suggested that Black people should remain in the South and focus on gaining an industrial education before political rights
- Washington debated strategies for Black advancement with W.E.B. Du Bois, who promoted a civil rights agenda
Nannie Helen Burroughs
- Daughter of enslaved people and an educator, suffragist, and church leader
- Helped establish the National Association of Colored Women in 1896
- Founded a school for women and girls in Washington, D.C., in 1909
Black Women Leaders
- Advocated for the rights of Black women during the women's suffrage movement of the early 20th century
- Their leadership was central to rebuilding African American communities after slavery
- Black women entered the workforce to support their families and organized labor unions with the goal of fair treatment
Women's Clubs
- Created by Black women leaders
- Countered race and gender stereotypes by promoting the dignity, capacity, beauty, and strength of Black women
How did African Americans respond to their ongoing exclusion from broader American society?
Created businesses and organizations that catered to the needs of Black citizens and improved the self- sufficiency of their communities
Citizens Savings Bank and Trust Company
- Founded in 1904
- The oldest, continuously operating African American-owned bank in the U.S.
- Originally known as the One Cent Savings Bank
- Became the first African American-owned bank in the U.S. to become a member of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Federal Reserve System
African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME)
- Founded in 1816 as the first Black Christian denomination in the U.S.
- After Reconstruction, the number of Black churches increased significantly
- Black churches were safe spaces for Black organizing, joy, and cultural expression
- Black churches created leadership opportunities that developed Black activists, musicians, and political leaders
Madame C.J. Walker
- First woman millionaire in the U.S.
- Developed products that highlighted the beauty of Black people
- Fostered Black economic advancement, and supported community initiatives through philanthropy
Anna Julia Cooper
- Author of "A Voice from the South: By a Black Woman of the South" (1892)
- The daughter of an enslaved woman and her enslaver
- Became a champion for Black women's rights and education
- Her work details the inequities that Black women have experienced and the incomplete picture of U.S. historical narratives that exclude the voices of African Americans and specifically Black women
The National Association of Colored Women (1896)
- Formed by Black women's clubs and regional federations coming together
-> Churchwomen also formed denominational organizations at the state and national levels, as was the case of Black Baptist women like Nannie Helen Burroughs
The Origin of HBCUs
- Historically Black Colleges and Universities
- African Americans founded their own colleges due to discrimination and segregation in education
- The first wave of HBCUs were private colleges and universities established largely by White philanthropists
-> Wilberforce University (Ohio, 1856), founded by the African Methodist Episcopal Church, was the first university fully owned and operated by African Americans
Later HBCUs
- Established as land- grant colleges with federal funding
-> The Second Morrill Act (1890) required that states either demonstrate that race was not a factor in admission to educational institutions or create separate institutions for Black students. As a result, 18 HBCUs were established.
- HBCUs were the primary providers of postsecondary education to African Americans up until the Black campus movement (1960s)
What was the significance of HBCUs?
- Transformed African Americans' access to higher education and professional training
- Allowed them to rise out of poverty and become leaders in all sectors of society
- Created spaces of cultural pride, Black scholarship, and innovation
- Helped address racial equity gaps in higher education
Black Greek-letter Organizations
- Emerged in colleges and universities across the US at HBCUs and PWIs
- African Americans found spaces to support each other in the areas of:
Self-improvement
Educational excellence
Leadership
Lifelong community service
The Fisk Jubilee Singers
- A student choir at Fisk University
- Introduced the religious and musical tradition of African American spirituals to the global stage during their international tours
The New Negro Movement
- Began late 19th century
- Encouraged African Americans to define their own identity and to advocate for themselves politically in the midst of the nadir's atrocities
- Pursued the creation of a Black aesthetic, which was reflected in the artistic and cultural achievements of Black creators
What innovations did the New Negro Movement inspire?
- Produced innovations in music (e.g., blues and jazz), art, and literature that served as counternarratives to prevailing racial stereotypes
- These artistic innovations reflected the migrations of African Americans from the South to urban centers in the North and Midwest
The Development of the New Negro Movement
- Evolved and assumed various and often contradictory forms, ranging from Booker T. Washington's accommodationist strategies to Marcus Garvey's claims that his movement was the embodiment of the New Negro
Black Aesthetics
- Alaine Locke redefined the trope in terms of an aesthetic movement
- Black aesthetics were central to self-definition among African Americans
- In "The New Negro: An Interpretation," Locke encourages young Black artists to reject the burden of being the sole representative of a race
The Harlem Renaissance
A flourishing of Black literary, artistic, and intellectual life that created a cultural revolution in the United States in the 1920s and 1930s
What role did photography play during the New Negro Movement?
- African American scholars, artists, and activists used photography to counter racist representations
- They seeked to create a distinctive Black aesthetic, grounded their work in the beauty of everyday Black life, history, folk culture, and pride in an African heritage
W.E.B. Du Bois' Exhibit at 1900 Paris Exposition
- "The Exhibit of American Negroes" by W.E.B. Du Bois
- His photographs of African Americans demonstrated their diversity and achievements
- Included dozens of charts and infographics with data grounded in demographic, scientific, and sociological research on the status of African Americans
- Visited by 45 million people and increased the global reach of the New Negro movement
James Van Der Zee
- He and other African American photographers recast global perceptions of African Americans by further illustrating the qualities of the "new negro"
- They documented Black expression, labor, leisure, study, worship, and home life, and highlighted the liberated spirit, beauty, and dignity of Black people
- Van Der Zee best known for his photographs of Black Harlemites, particularly the Black middle class
How did African Americans navigate their heritage during the Harlem Renaissance?
- Harlem Renaissance writers, artists, and scholars explored connections to and detachments from their African heritage as a response to the legacies of colonialism and Atlantic slavery
- Used imagery to counter negative stereotypes about Africa's peoples and landscapes
Education During the New Negro Movement
- New Negro renaissance writers, artists, and educators believed that U.S. schools reinforced the idea that Black people had made no meaningful cultural contributions and were thus inferior
- Urged African Americans to become agents of their own education and study the history and experiences of Black people to inform their future advancement
- Movement to place Black history in schools allowed the ideas of the New Negro renaissance to reach Black students of all ages
Gwendolyn Bennett and Countee Cullen
- Major writers of the Harlem Renaissance
- Both wrote poems called "The Heritage," exploring their unique African American identities
What stereotypes did African Americans refute through literature?
Writers, artists, and intellectuals of the New Negro renaissance refuted the idea that African Americans were people without history or culture and created a body of literature and educational resources to show otherwise.
Carter G. Woodson
- Son of formerly enslaved people
- Became the founder of what is now the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH)
- Created Negro History Week, which became Black History Month
- Published many works chronicling Black experiences and perspectives in history
- Notable Work: "The Mis-Education of the Negro" (1933)
Black Intellectual Tradition in the US
- Began two centuries before the formal introduction of the field of African American studies in the late 1960s
- Emerged through the work of Black activists, educators, writers, and archivists who documented Black experiences
The African Free School
- Began in late 18th century
- Provided an education to the children of enslaved and free Black people in New York. The school helped prepare early Black abolitionists for leadership
Arturo Schomburg
- Black Puerto Rican bibliophile
- His collection, donated to The New York Public Library, became the basis of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
Du Bois' Work as a Sociologist
His research and writings produced some of the earliest sociological surveys of African Americans
Zora Neale Hurston
- Anthropologist
- Her writings writings documented forms of African American culture and expression
- Wrote "Their Eyes Were Watching God" -> Displays colloquialisms
The Great Migration
- One of the largest internal migrations in U.S. history
- Six million African Americans relocated in waves from the South to the North, Midwest, and western United States
Why did African Americans Migrate?
- Labor shortages in the North during World War I and World War II increased job opportunities in northern industrial cities, appealing to African Americans in search of economic opportunities
- Environmental factors, such as floods, boll weevils, and spoiled crops, had left many Black Southerners impoverished
- Relocated in search of safety due to dangers of lynching and racial violence in the Jim Crow South
What made the Great Migration possible?
- A new railway system and the Black press
-> Trains offered a means to travel
-> The Black press provided encouragement and instructions for African Americans leaving the South
The Chicago Defender
- Most influential African American newspaper in the US
- Encouraged northward migration by depicting the best of Chicago life
Effects of the Great Migration
- Transformed American cities, Black communities, and Black cultural movements
- Infused American cities such as New York, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Los Angeles with Black Southern culture, creating a shared culture among African American communities across the country
- Transformed African Americans from primarily rural people to primarily urban dwellers (they engaged with nature for leisure rather than labor)
How did employers react to the Great Migration?
Employers resisted the flight of underpaid and disempowered Black laborers and had them unjustly arrested
How did Southern whites attempt to keep their Black labor force?
- Interfered with the US Mail to prevent the Chicago Defender from reaching Black people
- As northern family members sent train tickets to relatives in the south, cities passed ordinances that made it illegal for trains to accept pre-paid tickets
- Ordinances preventing group travel -> Police rounded people up
The Migration Series by Jacob Lawrence
- Chronicles African Americans' hopes and challenges during the Great Migration
- His work is known for its social realism due to his use of visual art to depict historical moments, social issues, and the everyday lives of African Americans
Afro-Caribbeans were affected by...
- The decline of Caribbean economies during World War I and the expansion of U.S. political and economic interests in the region
- They came to the U.S. for economic, political, and educational opportunities
Caribbean migrations to America increased due to U.S interventions in the region, including:
- U.S. acquisition of the Panama Canal (1903)
- U.S. occupation of Haiti and the Dominican Republic (1915-1934))
- U.S. purchase of the Virgin Islands for $25M from Denmark (1917).
The Arrival of Afro-Caribbean Immigrants
- More than 140,000 Afro-Caribbean immigrants arrived between 1899 and 1937
- Most settled in Florida and New York
- Their arrival to African American communities sparked tensions but also created new blends of Black culture in the U.S.
- Prominent early 20th-century, Afro-Caribbean immigrants include Claude McKay (Jamaica), Arturo Schomburg (Puerto Rico), and Marcus Garvey (Jamaica)
The Impacts of Afro-Caribbean Migration to the U.S.
- Increased the religious and linguistic diversity of African American communities
- Many of the new arrivals were Catholic, Anglican, and Episcopalian and hailed from non-English-speaking islands
- Afro-Caribbean intellectuals contributed to the radicalization of Black thought in the 20th century by infusing their experiences of Black empowerment and autonomy into the radical Black social movements of the time
"Restricted West Indian Immigration and the American Negro" by Wilfred A. Domingo, 1924
- Africans and their descendants born in the West Indies first arrived in what became the U.S. in the 17th century
-> when enslaved people from Barbados, Jamaica, and other British colonies in the Caribbean were brought to British North American colonies to work on plantations
- In the early 19th century, in the wake of the Haitian Revolution, formerly enslaved people found refuge in cities like New Orleans, Charleston, Norfolk, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York
Marcus Garvey
- Led the largest pan-African movement in African American history as founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA)
- The UNIA aimed to unite all Black people and maintained thousands of members in countries throughout the Caribbean, Latin America, and Africa
- Garvey's Back-to-Africa movement popularized the phrase "Africa for the Africans"
- Founded a steamship company, the Black Star Line, to repatriate African Americans to Africa
Pan-African Flag
- Created by Marcus Garvey in response to a popular "coon song" "Every Race Has a Flag but the Coon."
Red: blood shed for liberty
Black: race
Green: land of Africa
- Continues to be used by advocates of Black solidarity and freedom worldwide.
Marcus Garvey's Impact
- Inspired African Americans who faced intense racial violence and discrimination to embrace their shared African heritage
- Outlined the UNIA's objective to achieve Black liberation from colonialism across the African diaspora
- This framework became the model for subsequent Black nationalist movements throughout the 20th century
Negro World
- The UNIA's newspaper, Negro World
- Cofounded by Garvey's wife, Amy Ashwood
- Circulated in over 40 countries
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