Geography of Louisiana Test 3

Political Geography of Reconstruction

• reconstruction

• - US military occupation of the south

• racism against Blacks continued

• - south and north

• - south far more extreme and violent

• Lincoln

• - moderate republican

• - little or not punishment for south

• - assassinated

• President Andrew Johnson

• - tactless, dogmatic, unskilled in interpersonal relations

• republican hot heads

• - dominated US Congress

• - punish the south

• 13th amendment ended slavery

• 14th amendment

• - citizenship to all born in US

• — included free slaves

• - invalidate claims of compensation for freed slaves

• - ex confederates prevented from participating in government

• - invalidated confederate debt

• 15th amendment

• - right to vote for freed slaves

• - abused by southern states

Myths of Reconstruction

1. corrupt reconstruction state govts run by:

• Yankees, Blacks, southern traitors

• true, however

• facts:

• - govt corruption rampant in all US

• - all regions, all levels

• - military officers in charge of southern states

• — less corrupt than politician in north and west

• 2. Yankees raised taxes

• - force out confederate plantation owners

• - facts:

• - antebellum tax base largely slaves

• - railroads, crops and livestock

• — not much else left to tax

• - tax base shifted to land (only thing left)

• - needed funds to rebuild south

• — now funding public education

• —- need more money than pre civil war

• - hardest hit by taxes

• — poor whites of mountain regions

• —- often supported Union, owned land, no slaves

• 3. “40 acres and a mule” for all freed slaves

• - fact: never US government policy

• - possible sources

• — Pennsylvania congressman

• — union general

• every Christmas for about 10 years

• - Blacks expected this from President

Facts of Reconstruction

• ended by mid 1870s

• - north tired of reconstruction

• Northern sentiment

• - freed Blacks can do like immigrants

• - Blacks faced more racism and discrimination

Cotton on World Market

• Civil War to 1900: cotton prices plummet

• 1869 = Suez Canal

• - competition from India

• overproduction in south

• - drove down prices

• - supply and demand

Labor Adjusts without Slavery

• economic recovery of south

• - needed agriculture outpost

• - plantations needed steady labor supply

• control Black labor not enslaved:

• 1. Jim Crow Laws

• - social control of freed Blacks

• 2. Intimidation

• - violence, cross burnings, murder, lynching

• tried plantation work gangs with wages

• - too much like slavery

• south was “cash poor”

• - little money available for wages

Cash Rent

• pay rent to use land

• landowner: NO legal right to crop

• cash tenant owned ALL of crops

• racial prejudice against blacks for cash rent

Tenant Farming

• tenant farmer

• - had won mules and plows

• — no land

• - worked the land

• - payment to owner

• — 1/3rd corn, 1/4th cotton

• tenant farmer and land owner

• - joint ownership of crops

Sharecropping

• sharecroppers had no

• - land, mules, plows

• landowners designated

• - land to be worked

• - crops to be planted

• BOTH split cost of seed, fertilizer

• sharecroppers pay

• - NOT until harvest

• - ½ of crop as payment

• — minus costs

• - “share”

• crop legally belonged to landowner

• benefits to plantation owners

• - needed less cash

• - sharecroppers shared equally in risk

• discovered Blacks worked hard

• - now had incentive

• no costly supervision

• benefits to blacks and many poor whites

• - hosing away from owner

• - worked as family unit

• - preferred crop as payment

• — felt like working own land

• — felt like paying half of crop as rent

• - increased control over own lives

• - wife

• — mother and housewife

• — not field hand

• — but entire family worked when needed

• children sent to school

• - when possible

• - education highly valued

• - abuses

• - debt peonage = sharecropper given credit all year to buy things

• - crop sales often failed to cover debt for year, often ripped off by owner

• - perpetually in debt

Plantation Morphology

• Blacks moved out of slave quarters

• decentralization

• - dispersed settlement pattern

• - central location for: tools, barns, mules/horses

• commissary on many by 1900

• often a black church and school at corner

Increased Racial Violence

• racial violence

• - disruptive political meetings

• - beatings

• - cross burnings

• - murder

• organization

• - local level

• - Ku Klux Klan

• - lynching increased after Civil War

• — 1881-1950: about 82% occurred in south

• terrorism = publicly intimidate people

• justification for lynching

• - protect white women

• — deter Black men from raping

• yet, number 1 reason for lynching was black on white murder NOT RAPE

Disenfranchisement

• deny the right to vote

• started end of reconstruction, 1870s

• old democrats re-took state governments

• - maintain power of elite whites

• - stop block voting by: Blacks and populist poor whites

• various methods

• - most in deep south, some in border states

• 1. all white primary elections

• - democratic party (dominated south, excluded blacks)

• 2. residency requirements

• - often years

• - many blacks and poor whites often moved

• 3. poll tax

• - increased in 1890s

• - $1-$3 dollars in a year

• - poor black and white people could not afford it

• - exemptions

• — those who voted before a specific year

• —- usually before 1868

• —— 14th amendment = poll tax abolished

• 4. literacy tests

• - read portion of state constitution then interpret it

• - whites given difficult passages

New South

• 1st use approximately 1930s

• - development after 1880

• term is “re-invented” every 20-30 years

Regional Migration in South

• 1870s throughout south to Texas

• - Black and White

• - cowboys and land

• Black migrations: 1880s-1910

• from Carolinas and Georgia to Mississippi Delta because of rumors of better: wages, working conditions

• delta planters recruited in old cottage regions

• - “better” was mostly false

Local Migration in South

• rural to urban migration

• - gave up farming - Black and White

• - moved to small towns and cities

• - helped develop urban network in south

• plantation owners

• - often moved to cities

New South Towns

• post civil war

• - urban network developed

• - railroad

• — restored, improved and expanded (1870s and 1880s)

• — better transportation

• - linked cities together

• agribusiness complex development

• - help develop southern urban network

Agribusiness Complex

• cotton gin

• planters warehouses

• fertilizer plant and warehouse

• cotton seed oil

• county store

Louisiana French

• by 1770s, incorporated words from Native Americans, Africans, Spanish, English

• often called “Cajun French”

• LA state constitution 1879

• - laws in English but also in French in certain areas

• - primary school permitted in French Constitutions of 1898 and 1913

• - French extended to high schools

• 1916: Louisiana board of education began to suppress French in schools

• - NOT FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

• Americanization of non Anglo-Saxon ethnicities

Louisiana Bans

• Louisiana constitution of 1921

• - only English in public speakers

• started decline of French in south Louisiana

• - soon out of New Orleans

• resisted by many French speakers

• - but not as isolated as before

• 1930s onward:

• - French views as language of uneducated people

• - parents reluctant to have children learn French

Decline of Louisiana French

• when French was taught in private schools

• - emphasis on Standard French, not Cajun French

• WW2

• - drop of 17% Cajun French as 1st language

• endangered language

• - fewer and fewer children learning Cajun French

• - 1968: 1 million speakers

• - 2011: 150,000-200,000 speakers

Decline of the New South Plantation

• starting in early 1900s to 1920s

• absentee landlords

• loss of

• - direct knowledge of farming

• - stewardship of land - soil erosion

• many:

• - stopped sharecropping

• - not worth expenses or hassle

• fewer agricultural jobs

Boll Weevil

• insect = larvae eat lint inside cotton boll

• Mexico to Texas (1892)

• lower Georgia Piedmont (1915)

• Virginia (1923)

• absentee landlords

• - no leadership to fight boll weevil

• often unaware of threat:

• - sharecroppers and absentee landlords

• US department of agriculture bulletins on boll weevil

• - only educated planted subscribed

• Mississippi Delta

• - very fertile soil

• strong supervision by plantation owners

• - premier cotton region after 1900

• owner more likely

• - educated at state university in agriculture

• - to read department of agriculture bulletins

• successfully fought boll weevil

Plantations - 1910 Agricultural Census

• 75% of all plantations were in the North and West

• by 1910

• - large scale, commercial agriculture

• — plantation

The Great Migration

• out migration of blacks from south

• national level of migration

• followed roads and railroads

• - to northern cities usually due north

• chain migration

• roughly northerly direction

• 1940s: new destination

• - Los Angeles, Oakland

• music genres:

• - blues

• - rhythm and blues

• - Motown

• - gospel/blues

• Push Factors = reasons that PUSH people OUT OF HOME area

• poor economic conditions in rural south

• - decline of plantation after 1910

• racial oppression:

• - Jim Crow Laws

• - racial violence

• - cheating sharecroppers

• pull factors = reasons that PULL people TO A NEW location

• factory work in north

• - WW1

• - job opportunities for blacks in northern industries

• greater freedom for blacks in north and west

• - de facto segregation

• - not as harsh as southern segregation by law and custom

• schools in north and west

• - more comprehensive and better funded

• 12th grade

• WW2

• demands for military personnel and industrial labor

• added California waves of migration

• plantation and business owners

• - perceived labor shortage

• — never existed

• - wanted “cheap” labor

• little done to improve wages, housing, schools or end segregation and racial violence

• 1920s: plantation owners went north to lure workers back (epic fail)

• 1910-1960

• - over 6.5 million Blacks left the south

• - largest migration of any ethnic group within US

Chain Migration

migration linking old home area to a new location

mechanization in south

• mechanization

• - push factor after 1945

• 3 stages of mechanization

• - reduced labor needs

• 1. tractors

• - began 1910s

• - cotton regions by 1935

• - about fully adopted 1946

• 2. mechanical cotton pickers

• - mass production start in 1948

• - widely adopted 1956

• — especially in Mississippi Delta

• still needed labor to weed cotton

• 3. Herbicides

• - started 1955, fully adopted 1964

Geography of the KKK

• originally a confederate veterans organization

• RAPIDLY turned into a secret,, terrorist organization

• - intimidated and terrorized mostly Blacks

• — also sympathetic whites

• very loose organization

Ku Klux Klan

• 3 incarnations of KKK

• 1. Post Civil War

• - exclusively southern

• - beatings, midnight rides, murder, lynching

• — terrorism

• - usually local organization

• - actively slowed by mid 1870s, did NOT STOP

• 2. 1915- late 1930s

• - national

• - anti black, anti immigrant, anti catholic

• — not nearly as violent as 1st KKK

• - 2 state legislatures controlled by KKK members

• — Indiana and Colorado

• - many local people in south used KKK

• — tactics, symbols, even if not officially a member of KKK

• - terrorist actions have to be public to inspire terror

• 3. 1950s-present

• - almost all southern

• — white supremacist hate groups formed in other parts of US

• - mostly local organization

• - lots of information on KKK from late 1950s onward

• — riddled with FBI informants

• 1960s:

• - 15 separate and independent factions

• - each with own leader with title

• — imperial wizard

• — grand dragon

• — grand cyclops

• mid 1960s:

• 1967: total membership (established by FBI is 16,810)

• ½ of all KKK members: late 1960s in north Carolina

• members mostly from lower socioeconomic ranks

• - info from KKK leaders

• — less educated

• — laborers, tradesmen, factory workers

• — small towns and small cities

• mostly where Blacks formed a small minority of local population

• far smaller in plantation areas

• - Blacks often majority of population

Donald vs United Klans of America

• 1997 - Beulah Mae Donald sued UKA

• - 1981 - UKA murdered her son

• - 1984 convicted of murder

• 1987, verdict for Ms. Donald

• - ALL WHITE JURY in Mobile, Alabama

• - awarded $7 million dollars

• — bankrupted UKA

• — end of UKA

Citizens Councils

• July 1, 1954

• - 2 months after Brown decision

• - Mississippi Delta

• denounced secret rituals and violence

• middle class and businessmen

• mostly in plantation regions

• based on outdated concepts

• played to white southerners feelings of oppression, discrimination by federal government

• claimed to fight all desegregation:

• - openly, peacefully legal means

• called on local KKK groups for violent measures

• well documented by Mississippi stat government archives

• confederate battle flag

• - but racism drove their defiance of federal authority

• by 1963

• - mostly dead outside of Deep South

• - rapidly dying in Deep South, except Mississippi

Plantation Mentality to Fight Civil Rights

• social separation on plantations

• fight against civil rights took on plantations social separation

• social separation

• “owners” = state and local government officials, most prominent citizens

• “overseers” = citizens councils

• - organize “labor” to do violence for “owners”

• “labor” = local KKK as “labor” for violence

• most pronounced in Mississippi

David Duke

• LSU graduate

• - white supremacist student group at LSU in early 1970s

• tried to change image of KKK

• - business suits - not Klan robes

• — articulate, professional

• - changed title from “Grand Wizard” to “National Director”

• left KKK in 1980 and founded

• ran for office many times in louisiana

• - elected state representative in 1989

• - made run off for Louisiana governor election, 1991 vs Edwin Edwards

• various radio and internet programs

• felony conviction for tax and mail fraud

• - ripped off supporters

• - 2002 - 15 months in federal prison

• Duke mostly sidelined by white supremacists today

• - still has a few followers

• barred from most of Europe - all blue countries

Modern Black Civil Rights Movement

• WEB Dubois

• - majority of society had to change to end black oppression

• WW1 seeds for change in US

• - black US troops largely accepted by allies as equals

• - fight against old ideas on race

• - 1919 anti black race riots in many cities in US

World War 2

• black veterans

• - reluctant to accept Jim Crow laws

• — saw lack of such laws in rest of US

• - fought against fascist in WW2

• US military desegregation, 1948

• - Harry S Truman

• bring more mechanization to farming in south

1954 Brown v. Board of Education

• 5 suits by NAACP combined

• overturned Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896

• - separate but equal now unconstitutional

• begins landmark changes in US

• - law, culture, civil rights for minorities

1955: Montgomery Bus Boycott

• Rosa Parks

• - arrested for not sitting in back of bus

• blacks boycott buses

• - Montgomery Alabama

• - largely organized in black churches

• - 381 days

• November 1956

• - US supreme court

• - segregation of public transport unconstitutional

• consequences

• - many blacks felt empowered

• — changed the system

• — bus boycotts spread to other southern cities

• - many whites refused to ride public transport

• — same time as rise of car ownerships

• - launched Martin Luther King, Jr as a civil rights leader

CORE (Congress of Racial Equality)

• Congress of Racially Equality, 1942

• - black and white founders

• - nonviolence

• 1947 = started civil rights campaigns

• - quickly gained members

• - southern whites and blacks

• - by 1960, many northern whites

• — mostly college students

• freedom rides

• - desegregate public bus facilities in 1961

• - Washington DC to New Orleans

• - promptly arrested in Jackson

• - refused to pay $200 fine

• — sent to parchman state prison for 90 days

• freedom rides consequences

• - inspired and empowered rural blacks to start fighting for civil rights

• - started US government to take direct action to enforce supreme court orders

• - nation news: people shocked at discrimination and abuse

• — called for more action on civil rights

SNCC (Student Non Violent Coordination Committee)

• student non violent coordination committee

• 1960 - Raleigh, North Carolina

• - helped plan Greensboro, North Carolina lunch counter sit ins

• compared to SCLC

• - younger more impatient non violent confrontation

• 1961

• - Alabama’s Black Belt

• - moved into Mississippi

• - later in 1961, a little in Georgia

• voter registration schools

• - mostly rural counties and small towns

• 1964: Mississippi Summer

• massive campaign in Mississippi

• - northern college students to help blacks register to vote

• Neshoba County June 1964

• KKK murder of Andrew Goodman, Mcael Schwerner, James Chaney

• Goodwin, Schwerner and Chaney murders

• - investigated by the FBI

• many of the murderers spent years in jail

• - a few were not convicted

• - a few died in prison

• helped push civil rights act of 1964 through US Congress

SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference)

• (Southern Christian Leadership Conference from Montgomery

• reverend Martin Luther King Jr.

• - leader and spokesman

• activities thoroughout the south

• - march on washington DC summer 1963

• concentrated on Georgia and Alabama

• - 1961 and 1962 Albany Georgia and 1963 Birmingham Alabama

• moved headquarters to Atlanta Georgia

• march on Montgomery

• - march 1965

• - Selma to Montgomery alabama

• - peaceful demonstration

• - nonviolence

• Selma Alabama - began march to montgomery

• Edmund Pettus Bridge crossing alabama river

• - police and state troopers attacked peaceful marcher

• - tear gas, Billy Clubs, electric cattle prods, chains, rubber hoses, fire hoses, police dogs

• march Selma to Montgomery

• ABC TV news filmed it

• - broke into sunday night movie

• - “Judgement at Nuremberg” 1961

• — Nazi War Crime Trials

• - huge nationwide support for voting rights act of 1965

culture change

all cultures change

Southern Support for Segregation

• why the culture change

• culture

• - racism not as acceptable as in the past

• - sunbelt migration

• — northern whites migrating to southern states did not accept segregation

• economic

• - mechanization of agriculture

• — no need for social control of blacks as labor

• - sunbelt migration

• why the change

• political

• - ending discrimination

• — supreme court rulings

• — federal and state laws

• blacks exposing hypocrisy of US constitution and racial discrimination

• - so many other agreeing

Changing Image of South

• pre 1970

• - south - nearly all negative

• except for Andy Griffith show and maybery

• post 1970

• - changing image

• - not as negative

• - some very positive

• President Jimmy Carter

• - smokey and the bandit

• - dukes of hazard

race relations

• 1970s

• - courts ordered busing to desegregate school

• - race riots over desegregation

• - norther and western cities

• racial problems in the south but nationwide has horrible problems

• south

• - probably more open and honest about race

• southerners

• - used to daily interaction between blacks and whites

• - north and west

• — many people not used to daily interaction with other races

• recently

• - race relations at an extremely low points

• as bad as they are today but still not as bad in the past

• but there has been an increase in racial violence

• desegregation across society

• - black republicans and conservatives

• - especially among males

Sunbelt

• migration to the south

• pull factors

• - taxes lower in south than just about anywhere else in US

• - mild winters

• - sunnier

• - air conditioning

• - environment

• — mountains (Appalachians, Ozarks)

• — beaches

• - retirement in south

• — or just winter months

• florida 1950s

• arkansas

• - ozarks 1960s and 70s

• gulf coast 1980s

• big business (retirement)

• 1st positive term for south in a long time

• - also includes southwest US not just south

• black and white

• 1970s - more blacks return to south than leave

• - increased 1990s part of sunbelt migration

• pull factor for blacks

• - all of the other things plus improved race relations

agricultue

• high value agriculture products

• - beef cattle

• — better breeding improved herds

• - soybeans

• - rice

• - catfish

• - poultry

• - lumber

• — trees grow faster than other parts of US

• cotton makes something of a comeback

industry

• new industry came south

• cars light manufacturing

• - usually paid less than workers in rest of US

• - few trade unions

• - lower taxes

• - fewer environmental regulation

casinos

• big business

• - mississippi

• — takes business away from atlanta city new jersey

• louisiana

louisiana

• film industry

• - New Orleans and shrevport

• - georgia way bigger in film industry

US becoming more southern

• blues revival

• - later 1950s led by northern university students

• — adopted southern black culture trait

• - huge influence on popular music mid 1950s to present

• country music

• - 1970 ompletely national

• southern rock

• - 1970

• - Allman brother, Lynyrd skynyrd

• “ sweet home alabam”

• - nation hit

• - still popular

• - celebration of the south

• southern baptists

• - used to be fastest growing christian denomination in US to california in 1930s

• - growth mainly outside of south

• south had often led the country in pop growth and econ growth

• southern politics

• - always more conservative then rest of us

• - many parts of US more conservative than in the past

• mississippi leads US in number of black elected officals

US SOUTH

not perfect still has lots of work to be done but has come a long way in civil rights and race economically sometimes leads the rest of the US on some issues