Unit 3 AP AAS

Unit 3: Practice of Freedom

Unit test Feb 28th

3.1 Reconstruction Amendments

During Reconstruction(165-1877), the federa; government sought to reintegrate the farmer Confederate states and to establish and protect the rights of free and formly enslaved African americans, granting them citizenship, equal rights, and political representation in American government. 

• 13th Amendment (1865) Officially abloished slavery, or involuntary servitude, 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 v. Sanford case (1857). 

• 15th amendment (1870) Prohibited the federal government and each state from denying or abridging a citizen’s right to vote on account of race, color, or pervious condition of servitude.

Black men’s access to the right to vote through the 15th Amendment enabled their formal participation in American politics. The particaption of thousands of African Americans in Southern politics was one of the most significant features of the Reconstruction era.  

 Black Organizations & Insttitutions 

African American inventors and entrepreneurs like Madam C.J. Walker, the first woman millionaire in the United States, developed products that highlighted the beauty of Black people, fostered Black economic advancement, and supporteed community initiatives through philanthropy. (1906-1950)

• Helped people get employed, and helped people prepare for job interviews

The expansionof the Black press played a crucial role in African American communites by providing news to African Americans locally and nationally, documenting aspects of community life, and serving as a vehicle for protesting racial discrimination 

The Freedom journal, the North Star

Magazines: The colored American,  The crisis, (after world war 2): Ebnoy and Jet

African Americans continued to transform Christia worship in the United States and created their own institutions. The African Methodist Episcopal Chruch(AME) was founded in 1816 

3.2 Social Life: Reunification & the Freedmen’s Bureau 

Social Life: 

Centuries of enslavement disrupted family bonds among African Americans, as relatives were forcibly sold, relocated, and had their names changed repeatedly by their enslavers.   

Despite these challenges, African Americans created new kinship bonds and family traditions during and after slavery.  

Family Reunification: 

Family separation before and during the Civil War led to families using various publications to seek information to find missing loved ones. 

 The Christian Recorder was the official newspaper of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in 1852, the first Black denomination in the U.S.  

The Freedmen’s Bureau: 

The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands (The Freedmen’s Bureau) was established by Congress in 1865 and operated until 1872. 

The Freedmen’s Bureau was responsible for 

• managing property abandoned and confiscated during the Civil War

• Primary function was to assist formerly enslaved people as they transitioned into American citizens. 

  • providing clothing and food

  • legalizing marriages

  • establishing schools

• After emancipation, African Americans searched for kin separated by the domestic slave trade. They relied on newspapers, word of mouth, and help from the Freedmen’s Bureau as they traveled to find lost family and friends.

• Enslaved African Americans’ marriages were not considered legally binding, though many enslaved people “jumped the broom” as a symbol of their union. After abolition, thousands of formerly enslaved African American men and women sought to consecrate their unions through legal marriage when it became available to them. Many adopted a new name that represented their status as free people and ability to shape their own identities.

• Many African Americans established a tradition of family reunions, an outgrowth of their post-emancipation search to connect with long-lost relatives and friends. Modern family reunions preserve and celebrate Black families’ history, resilience, music, and culinary traditions.

3.3- Black Codes, Labor & Land

• In 1865 and 1866 during Presidential Reconstruction, many state governments enacted Black Codes—restrictive laws that undermined 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. 

• Black Codes restricted the advancement of African Americans by limiting property ownership or requiring entry into labor contracts. Many annual labor contracts provided very little pay; some who tried to escape a labor contract were whipped, and those without labor contract could be fined or imprisoned for vagrancy. 

• One set of Black Codes disrupted African American families by allowing their children to be taken by the state and forced to serve unpaid apprenticeships without their parents’ consent.

• In 1865, Union General William T. Sherman issued Special Field Orders No. 15, which aimed to redistribute about 400,000 acres of land between South Carolina and Florida to newly freed African American families in segments of 40 acres. 

• President Andrew Johnson revoked Special Field Orders No. 15, and confiscated plantations were returned to their former owners or purchased by northern investors. As a result, African Americans were evicted or shifted into sharecropping contracts. 

• Through sharecropping, landowners provided land and equipment to formerly enslaved people or indigent whites, who were required in exchange to return a large share of the crops to the landowner, making economic advancement very difficult. 

• Through crop liens, farmers who began with little or no cash received food and supplies on credit, borrowing against their future harvest to acquire farming equipment and supplies. Their harvested crops often did not generate enough money to repay the debt, creating a vicious cycle of debt accumulation. 

• Through 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.

3.5- Disenfranchisement & Jim Crow Laws

The term “Jim Crow” originated in the 1830s as a derogatory term for African Americans. 

Jim Crow laws were local and state-level statutes passed primarily (but not exclusively) in the South under the protection of the Supreme Court’s decision in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896).

Jim Crow laws limited African American men’s right to vote and enforced the racial segregation of hospitals, transportation, schools, and cemeteries for Black and white citizens. 

Jim Crow–era segregation restrictions would not be overturned until the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

Nadir 

African American Studies scholars refer to the period between the end of Reconstruction and the beginning of the Second World War as the “nadir,” or lowest point of American race relations. This period included some of the most flagrant public acts of racism (including lynching and mob violence) in United States history.

African American journalists and writers of the era highlighted the racism at the core of Southern lynch laws that sought to justify the rampant, unjust killing of Black people. 

African American activists responded to attacks on their freedom with resistance strategies, such as trolley boycotts. Activists relied on sympathetic writers in the press to publicize the mistreatment and murder of African Americans.

3.6- White Supremacist Violence & the Red Summer

Causes of Radical Violence 

• Between 1917 and 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.” 

• In the summer of 1919, a global flu pandemic, competition for jobs, and racial discrimination against Black First World War veterans all contributed to a rise in hate crimes across the country. More than 30 urban race riots occurred that summer. 

• In 1921, a mob of white residents and city officials incited the Tulsa race massacre, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The Tulsa race massacre destroyed more than 1,250 homes and businesses in Greenwood, also known as “Black Wall Street,” which was one of the most affluent African American communities in the United States. 

• Racial violence in the twentieth century prevented many African American families from passing down wealth and property.

African American responses 

• African Americans resisted white supremacist attacks on their communities through political activism, published accounts, and armed self-defense. 

• Racial discrimination and violence, coupled with a lack of economic opportunities in the South, spurred the beginnings of the Great Migration.

3.7- The color line & Double Consciousness 

The symbols of “the mask” (in “We Wear the Mask”) and “the Veil” (in The Souls of Black Folk) represent African Americans’ separation from full participation in American  society and struggle for self-improvement due to discrimination.

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 20th century is the problem of the color line.”

“Double consciousness” refers to the internal conflict experienced by subordinated groups in an oppressive society. 

• Double consciousness gave African Americans a way to examine the unequal realities of American life.

Double consciousness resulted from social alienation created through racism and discrimination. However, it also fostered agency, adaptation, and resistance.

3.8- Uplift Ideologies & Black Women’s Rights and Leadership 

3.9- Black Organizations & Institutions

In response to their ongoing exclusion from broader American society, many African Americans 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, is the oldest, continuously

operating African American–owned bank in the United States. Originally known as the One

Cent Savings Bank, it became the first African American–owned bank in the United States

to become a member of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Federal

Reserve System.

African American inventors and entrepreneurs like Madam C.J. Walker, the first woman millionaire in the United States, developed products that highlighted the beauty of Black people, fostered Black economic advancement, and supported community initiatives through philanthropy.

The expansion of the Black press played a crucial role in African American communities by providing news to African Americans locally and nationally, documenting aspects of community life, and serving as a vehicle for protesting racial discrimination.

African Americans continued to transform Christian worship in the United States and created their own institutions. The African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) was founded in 1816 as the first Black Christian denomination in the United States, and after  Reconstruction the number of Black churches increased significantly.

Black churches served as safe spaces for organizing, worship, and cultural  expression. They created leadership opportunities that developed Black activists, musicians, and political leaders.

3.10- HBCUs & Black Greek-Lettered Organizations

Establishing HBCUs

Discrimination and segregation in education led African Americans to found their own colleges, the majority of which were established after the Civil War.

The first HBCUs were private colleges and universities established largely by white philanthropists. Wilberforce University (Ohio, 1856), founded by leaders in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, was the first university fully owned and operated by African Americans.

Later HBCUs were 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.

HBCU Models 

In the late 19th and early 20th

centuries, HBCUs emphasized two

educational models: 

• Liberal arts education

  • Fisk University

• Vocational-industrial model 

  • Tuskegee Institute

HBCUs were the primary providers of postsecondary education to African Americans up until the Black campus movement of the 1960s.

 HBCU Education 

The founding of HBCUs transformed African Americans’ access to higher education and professional training, which allowed many to rise out of poverty and become leaders in all sectors of society.

HBCUs created spaces for cultural pride,

Black scholarship, and activism, and

helped address racial equity gaps in higher

education.

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.

Black Greek-Lettered Organizations 

Black Greek-letter organizations (BGLOs) emerged across the United States, at HBCUs and predominantly white institutions. African Americans in BGLOs found spaces to support one another in the areas of self-improvement, educational excellence, leadership, and lifelong community service.

3.11- New Negro Movement & Harlem Renaissance 

3.12- Photography & Social Change

African American scholars, artists, and activists turned to photography to counter racist representations that were used to justify their mistreatment and Jim Crow segregation. 

During the New Negro movement, African American photographers, seeking 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. 

African American photographers, such as James Van Der Zee, 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.

3.13- Envisioning Africa in Harlem Renaissance Poetry

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. 

Some Harlem Renaissance poets used imagery to counter negative stereotypes about Africa’s people and landscapes. 

Some Harlem Renaissance poets explored the relationship between Africa and African American identity and heritage through personal reflection. 

3.14- Symphony in Black: Black Performance in Music, Theater & Film 

Black Contributions to music 

In the early decades of the 20th century, the Harlem Renaissance and the Jazz Age opened opportunities for African American record labels, musicians, and vocalists to gain a wider audience. The rise of radio broadcast African American genres including blues, gospel, and jazz across the nation. 

Blues music has its roots in slavery. Beginning as acoustic music in the American South, a new, electric version evolved as African Americans moved north during the Great Migration. The heightened emotion of blues music conveys themes such as despair and hope, love, and loss, using repetition, call and response, and vernacular language. 

Jazz has been described as the United States’ most distinctive contribution to the arts. Like blues, jazz originated among African American communities in the South (New Orleans) and developed new styles following migration to the North, Midwest, and West. From big band to free jazz, the genre continues to evolve in the present day

Ex: Duke Ellington produced the short musical film Symphony in Black: A Rhapsody of Negro Life (1934) depicting various scenes of African American life including work, love, and religious scenes.

Black Contributions to Theater

Black performers flourished in cabarets, on Broadway, and in film in the early 20th century. 

Hollywood also produced all-Black musicals, such as Cabin in the Sky (1943) featuring prominent Black actors, musicians, and dancers. 

Ethel Waters was the first African American to star in her own television show (1939).

Lena Horne would go in to become of one of the most well-known Black actresses and singers of the generation. 

3.15- Black History Education & African American Studies 

Schomburg

Arturo Schomburg’s collection included rare artifacts that reflected the diverse artistic, literary, and political contributions of the African diaspora, including correspondence that belonged to Toussaint L’Ouverture, newspapers originally published by Frederick Douglass, and poems by Phillis Wheatley. 

New Negro Movement & Black Education

New Negro movement writers, artists, and educators believed that United States schools reinforced the idea that Black people had made no meaningful cultural contributions and were thus inferior. They urged African Americans to become agents of their own education and study the history and experiences of Black people to inform their future advancement. 

Artists, writers, and intellectuals of the New Negro movement refuted the idea that African Americans were people without history or culture and created a body of literature and educational resources to show otherwise. The early push to place Black history in schools allowed the contributions of the New Negro movement to reach Black students of all ages.

The Black intellectual tradition in the United States began two centuries before the formal introduction of the field of African American Studies in the late 1960s. It emerged through the work of Black activists, educators, writers, and archivists who documented Black experiences. 

Beginning in the late 18th century, the African Free School provided an education to the children of enslaved and free Black people in New York. The school helped prepare early Black abolitionists for leadership.

The son of formerly enslaved people, Carter Godwin Woodson 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; and published many works of African American history that started with African origins through the early twentieth century. 

Arturo Schomburg’s collection included rare artifacts that reflected the diverse artistic, literary, and political contributions of the African diaspora, including correspondence that belonged to Toussaint L’Ouverture, newspapers originally published by Frederick Douglass, and poems by Phillis Wheatley. 

3.18 The Universal Negro Improvement Association

Pan-Africanism: a movement that advocates for the unity of African peoples and the elimination of colonialism and white supremacy. 

Marcus Garvey 

• Founded and led the Universal Negro Improvement Association(UNIA) in 1914

  • Wife Amy Ashwood co-founded 

  • Largest pan-African movement in African American history

  • UNIA aimed to unite all Black people and maintained thousands of members( Caribbean, Latin AMerica, and Africa) 

- 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