Reconstruction and Jim Crow Laws
Reconstruction, Jim Crow Laws, and Segregation
Setting the Stage
Laws are made by state governments, the federal government (Congress), and town councils.
Voters are allowed to choose these people.
State governments decide who votes, and voters decide who is in the state government.
Reconstruction Background and Vocabulary
Reconstruction: The period after the Civil War in which Southern states were rebuilt and brought back into the Union.
13th Amendment (1865): Abolished slavery throughout the United States.
Formally added to the Constitution.
“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the united states, or any place subject to their jurisdiction”.
Freedmen’s Bureau: U.S. government agency established in 1865 to aid former enslaved people in their transition to freedom and to help rebuild the South after the Civil War.
Provided healthcare, homes, education, and jobs.
Black Codes: Laws enacted in Southern states immediately after the Civil War that severely restricted the rights of African Americans and aimed to maintain white supremacy.
Purpose: To recognize that slavery was abolished but maintain white supremacy with little change from slavery to freedom.
Civil Rights Act of 1866: Declared freedmen to be full citizens with the same civil rights as whites.
Fourteenth Amendment (1868):
Granted citizenship to all people born or naturalized in the United States.
Guaranteed the equal protection of the laws.
Ensured due process.
Impeachment of President Johnson:
Impeached by the House of Representatives for being too lenient with the South during Reconstruction.
Found not guilty in the Senate hearing.
He was the first president to be impeached.
Military Reconstruction Act (1867):
Divided the South into five military districts governed by a general supported by federal troops.
New governments formed with both Black and White Southerners in leadership.
Confederates were denied the right to vote which reduced Johnson's power.
Fifteenth Amendment (1870): Prevents the government from denying a citizen's right to vote based on race, color, or “previous condition of servitude.”
Election of 1868: Ulysses S. Grant elected president.
New Southern voters: former slaves (freedmen), white Southerners who opposed them (scalawags), and Northerners who moved to the South following the war (carpetbaggers).
The South turned Republican because fewer Confederate-supporting people had less of a say in voting turnout.
Ku Klux Klan: A group of white supremacists who terrorized Black people.
Burned down schools, and committed acts of violence for actions such as socializing with a white man or looking at a white woman.
Enforcement Acts (1870 and 1871):
Three laws passed by the U.S. Congress between 1870 and 1871 to protect the rights of African Americans.
Intended to protect their right to vote, hold office, and be treated equally under the law.
A direct response to violence and intimidation by groups like the Ku Klux Klan.
Amnesty Act of 1872:
Reversed political restrictions on former Confederates, removing voting restrictions and office-holding disqualifications for the majority of them.
Lifted penalties imposed by the Fourteenth Amendment, except for some top Confederate leaders.
Election of 1876 and the End of Reconstruction:
Republican Rutherford B. Hayes narrowly defeated Democrat Samuel J. Tilden.
The conventional end of Reconstruction occurred in 1877 when the federal government withdrew the last troops stationed in the South as part of the Compromise of 1877.
Jim Crow and Segregation
Following the end of Reconstruction, a new form of oppression emerged in the South.
Changes when Blacks were allowed to vote following the Civil War:
More laws benefited Blacks, and there were more Blacks in power.
What White Southerners were afraid of by the 1890s:
That Blacks with political powers would integrate southern society.