AP African American Studies Unit 3: The Practice of Freedom

Reconstruction goals

• Plan for after the Civil War

• The rebuilding of the southern society

  • Replacing a society built completely around slavery

• Attempt to integrate 4 mil AAs into Southern Society

Reconstruction Era

• 1865-1877

• Reintegration of former Confederate States

• Established and protected rights of free & formerly enslaved AAs

• Granted them citizenship, rights & political representation in Governments

Depicts African American legislators in Congress

13th Amendment

• 1856

• Officially abolished slavery & involuntary servitude EXCEPT AS PUNISHMENT FOR A CRIME

14th Amendment (1868)

• Defined the principle of birthright citizenship

• Granted equal protection to all people

• Overturned Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857) & state level Black codes

  • Reminder: Dred Scott v. Stanford originally stated African Americans were not citizens

15th Amendment

• 1870

• Gave black men the right to vote

  • Prevented federal & state governments from denying citizen’s right to vote on the basis of race, color or previous condition of servitude

Impact of 15th Amendment on political participation

• Black men’s access to voting rights allowed them to participate in American politics

  • Participation of thousands of Black Americans (mostly formerly enslaved) in Southern politics was a major part of the Reconstruction era

• During the Reconstruction era nearly 2,000 AAs served in public office from the local level to the Senate

• Many rights gained for AAs during Reconstruction were blocked during the Jim Crow Era

• AAs would fight in the 1960s to reclaim rights they earned in the 1870s

Freedmen’s Bureau

• The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands

  • AKA the Freedmen’s Bureau

  • Official US Gov agency

• Responsible for managing property abandoned and confiscated during the civil war

• Primary purpose was to aid formerly enslaved people

  • Helped in the transition to be American citizens

• Provided clothing/food, legalizing marriages and establishing schools

African American families after the Civil War

• Enslavement disrupted family bonds

  • Relatives were sold, relocated, forcibly changed their names by enslavers through int. and dom. slave trade

• Created new kinship bonds and traditions during and after slavery

• Relied on newspapers, word of mouth, and help from the Bureau to find lost family and friends

African Americans and their names

• Adopted new names that represented their status as free people

• Allowed them to shape their own identities

African American Marriages

• Not legally binding before abolition

• Many “jumped the broom” while enslaved as a symbol of their union

• After the Civil War, thousands of AAs sough legal marriage

African American family reunions

• Established traditions of family reunion to connect with long-lost relatives and friends

• Modern family reunions preserve and celebrate Black families’ history, resilience, music, and culinary traditions

Black Codes

• Laws restricting newly gained rights of AAs

  • Controlled movement and labor

• Restricted advancement

• Enacted by many states during reconstruction

• Black Codes aimed to restore social controls of earlier slave codes

• One set of black codes allowed black children to be taken for unpaid apprenticeships without parental consent

Black Code restrictions

• Limited property ownership

• Required entry into labor contracts

  • Paid poorly

  • Escapees of contracts were whipped

  • Ones w/o contracts could be fined/imprisoned for vagrancy

Special Field Order No.15 _{(40 acres and a mule)}

• Redistribution of 40,000 acres of land to AA families

  • Given in segments of 40 acres

• Andrew Jackson revoked the order

  • Confiscated plantations were returned to past owners/bought by northern investors

Sharecropping

• Landowners gave land + equipment to the formerly enslaved and poors

• Sharecroppers had to return a large share of the crops to the land owners

• Made economic advancement difficult

Circular No.8

• Plantations were forbidden to fire freed-people without payment

• Done to prevent the exploitation of African American laborers

Crop Liens

• Farmers with little resources received food + supplies on credit

• Paid it back with their future harvest

• Harvested crops often didn’t make enough money to repay debts

• Created vicious cycle of debt

Convict leasing

• Southern prisons profited by hiring out imprisoned AA men

  • Imprisoned for debt, false arrest & minor charges to landowners and corporations

• Prisoners worked without pay

• Conditions very similar to slave labor

De Jure

• Systems defined by law

• Segregation looked like:

  • Jim Crow Laws

  • Plessy V. Ferguson

    

De Facto

• Systems defined by culture, practice etc

  • Not formally in place

• Segregation looked like:

  • Housing trends

  • Workplace Segregation

Literacy test

• Nonsense test given before voting

• Vague questions with many answers

• AAs who took the test were failed

Threats to Voting Rights

• Black voting rights during reconstruction were not protected/in danger

• Black participation in voting was restricted

  • Literacy Tests

  • Poll Taxes (fee before voting)

  • Grandfather Claues

Grandfather clauses

• If your grandfather could vote before 1867 so could you

• Black men weren’t able to vote until 1870

Beginning of Jim Crow

• After the election of 1876 & the Compromise of 1877 some states rewrote their state constitutions to include de jure segregation laws

  • Election of 1876

    • EXTREMELY CLOSE!

    • Hayes won the electoral vote, lost the popular vote

  • Compromise of 1877

    • Said that Republicans could have the election as long as they promised to remove military troops from the South

    • Gave less protection to AAs

Racial Violence after Reconsturction

• Endangered AA lives

• Lynching

  • Public executions w/o fair trail

• Retaliation from former Confederates

• Political terr0rist groups

• Klu Klux Klan (KKK): Created in 1865 to spread white supremacy and targeted racial violence

Plessy V. Ferguson

• Ruled that “separate but equal” conditions were constitutional

  • Became legal basis for racial Segregation in much of America

  • Legalized separate and unequal resources, facilities and rights

  • Eventually overturned in Brown V. Board of Education (1954)

The Nadir

• 1877-1938

  • End of reconstruction to beginning of WW2

• Lowest point of Race relations in the US

• Some of the most brutal public acts of racism

  • Lynching

  • Mob violence

Jim Crow

• Originated in 1830s

• Thomas Dartmouth (T.D) Rice performed an act in a minstrel show called “Jump, Jim Crow” where he was in blackface

• Mocked AAs in speech and dance

• Popularity of character led to Jim Crow becoming a common, derogatory term for AAs

Jim Crow Laws

• Eventually referred to local and state-level laws for AAs

• Mainly in the south

• Protected by Plessy v. Ferguson

• Limited AAs right to vote

• Enforced racial Segregation

• Remained until the Civil RIghts Movement

AA resistance of The Nadir

• Activists responded with resistance to Segregation

  • Example: Trolley boycotts

• AA journalists and writers highlighted racism of Southern lynch laws

• Activists relied on sympathetic writers in the press of publicize mistreatments and murders of AAs

Ida B. Wells Barnett

• Journalist, Civil Rights Advocate, Feminist

• 19th and early 20th century

• Writings described how lynching sought to terrorize AAs

• Proposed that AAs own a gun to protect themselves

The Color Line

Metaphor for the racial discrimination and legalized Segregation after abolition of slavery

Double Consciousness

• Metaphor for how AAs lived with two identities

  • African identity and “American” status

  • reflects internal conflict experienced by oppressed groups

• Caused by social alienation created through racism and discrimination

• Has both positive and negative impacts on society

• Also fostered agency adaptation and resistance

• Believed AAs had an opportunity to have a unique perspective on American society

The Mask & the Veil

• Represent AA’s separation from full participation in American society

• Struggle for self-improvement due to discrimination

• A metaphor for the survival mechanism during the Nadir

• Symbolizes how AAs can see while society but whites cannot truly see Black Americans behind their mask

Booker T. Washington Uplift Strategy

• Born into slavery in 1856 in Virginia

• Prominent Black activist

• Argued that AAs should stay in the south & focus on vocational training (trades/practical skills)

  • Argued AAs should work their way up to political participation and Liberal Arts

• Gradual approach

  • Preferred by AA for his cautiousness

  • Preferred by whites because it kept AAs as laborers and out of politics

Du Bois’ uplift strategy

• Believed Washington’s approach wouldn’t work

• Du Bois demanded immediate civil rights and social change

• Focused on Liberal Arts education/higher education, political participation and Civil RIghts

NAACP

• Founded in 1909

• Goals

  • Advocate for Civil RIghts

  • Challenge racial injustices through legal action

  • Fight discrimination

• White Allies helped the org. grow and become popular in mainstream media

• Some believed the org should be 100% black

  • Scared white interests would be prioritized

Nannie Helen Burroughs

• Black educator, suffragist, church leader. daughter of enslaved people

• Worked in Women’s suffrage movement

  • Became he president of the the Nation Association of Colored Women

  • Advocated for the rights of Black Women in health, education and civil rights

Lift Every Voice and Sing

• Poem created by James Weldon Johnson

• Now known as the Black National Anthem

• Purpose is to encourage AAs to take pride in their heritage and Cultural achivments

The Roles of Church Women

• Helped to rebuild black communities

• Entered workforce

• Organized labor unions

• Created clubs

• Created religious groups

• Exemplified black agency, dignity, capacity, beauty, and strength

• Mary Church Terrell

  • Key founder of National Association of Colored Women (NACW)