TOPIC 3.1 The Reconstruction Amendments

Impact on Standards of Citizenship

• During this period (1865-1877)

  • Government-integrated Confederate states

  • Establish/protect the rights of formerly enslaved African Americans

    • Granted citizenship, equal rights, political representation

• 13th Amendment- abolished slavery and involuntary servitude (except for crime)

• 14th Amendment (1868)- defined birthright citizenship

  • Overturned Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) and state-level Black codes

• 15th Amendment (1870) prohibited Federal government denying citizen right to vote

  • On account of race, color, and previous condition of servitude

15th Amendment Impact on Politics

• Black men access to right to vote

  • Enabled participation of thousands and formerly enslaved

• Around 2000 black Americans served public office on the local and Senate level

  • Jim Crow laws interfered with this and had to fight until 1960s to reclaim rights

TOPIC 3.2 Social Life: Reuniting Black Families and the Freedmen’s Bureau

Purpose of Freedmen’s Bureau

• The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands

  • Established in 1865-1872

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

  • Assisted formerly enslaved people becoming citizens

  • Assistance, clothing, food, legalizing marriages, and establishing schools were all in effect

African Americans: Strengthening of Family Bonds

• Centuries of slavery dispersed African American families and changed names by enslavers.

  • African Americans had to learn how to create kinship bonds and family traditions after slavery

• Post-emancipation

  • African Americans searched for kin through newspapers, word of mouth and Freedmen’s Bureau

• Marriages

  • Black Marriages not considered legally binding but some tried to consecrate their unions legally.

    • Also adopted a new name that established free status and freedom to express identity

• Family reunions

  • Established through long-lost relatives

  • Preserve history, resilience, music, and culinary traditions

TOPIC 3.3 Black Codes, Land, and Labor

Effect of Black Codes

• State governments established Black codes in 1865-1866

  • Restricted newly gained legal rights

  • Controlled movement and labor

  • Attempted to restore social controls of previous slave codes

  • Restricted advancement by limiting property ownership and requiring entry to labor contracts

    • Offered little pay

    • Those that tried to escape could be whipped, fined, or imprisoned for vagrancy

• Created rules that even forced black children to serve unpaid apprenticeships without parental consent

New Labor Practices

• Special Field Orders No. 15- 1865 order by Union General William T. Sherman- that redistributed 400k acres of land from SC to Florida to freed African American families

  • Revoked by President Andrew Johnson, who confiscated plantations and returned to previous owners or purchased by northern investors

    • Black Americans evicted or shifted to Sharecropping contracts

• Sharecropping

  • Landowners gave land and equipment to formerly enslaved

    • Required to exchange large share of crops to land owner- prevented economic advancement

• Crop liens

  • Poor farmers received food and supplies on credit against future harvest

  • Not enough money to repay debt and accumulated it

• Convict leasing

  • In the past, Southern prisons profited by leasing African American male prisoners, who were jailed for debt, false arrest, or minor crimes, to landowners and companies. These prisoners endured harsh conditions resembling slavery and were not compensated for their work.

TOPIC 3.4 The Defeat of Reconstruction

Dismantling of Reconstruction-era Reforms

• State constitutions began to include de jure segregation laws after the 1876 election and the Compromise of 1877

• Black voting was suppressed through various methods such as poll taxes, literacy tests, and grandfather clauses.

• Racial violence- lynching by former Confederates, political terrorist groups (Ku Klux Klan), and others who embraced white supremacy

• Plessy v Ferguson 1896- upheld Louisiana law mandating segregater passenger seats for railroad transportation

  • Separate but equal

  • Legal basis for separation and unequal resources, facilities, and rights

Features of Slave Ship Diagrams

• Diagrams only show half the number of slaves that people used to maximize profit

• Unsanitary and cramped conditions led to death and disease

• Guns, nets, and force-feeding prevented resistance

Slave ships effect on Abolitionists and Black Artists

• Antislavery activism became prominent.

  • People circulated diagrams to raise awareness of the

  • Visual and performance

  • Conditions slaves had to go through

• Black visual and performance artists showed the slave ships to honor the memory of the people who died

TOPIC 3.5 Disenfranchisement and Jim Crow Laws

Jim Crow laws

• Power of law and white supremacy

  • Led to assault on body, mind, spirit

  • Punished by whipping in front of families

African American Activism during the Nadir

• Nadir- period between the end of Reconstruction and the beginning of the Second World War

  • Lowest point of race relations

  • Acts of racism (lynching and mob violence)

• Black journalists highlighted racism at the core of Southern lynch laws

• Responded to attacks on freedom with trolley boycotts, sympathetic writers, and press to publicize mistreatment and murder

TOPIC 3.6 White Supremacist Violence and the Red Summer

Causes of Racial Violence- 20th century

• Red summer- racial violence by white supremacy in 1917 and 1921

• Summer of 1919 global flu pandemic, competition, racial discrimination against Black veterans

  • Contributed to hate crimes and urban race riots

• 1921 Tulsa race massacre- white residents and city officials destroyed homes and business in Greenwood aka black wall street which was a prominent African American Community in the businesses

• racial violence prevented African Americans from passing wealth and property

Response to Racist Attacks

• African Americans resisted white supremacy through activism , published accounts, and armed self defense

• Great Migration- racial discrimination, violence, and economic disadvantage led to this

TOPIC 3.7 The Color Line and Double Consciousness in American Society

Effect of Black writing

• Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask and “the Veil”- represent Black struggle for self improvement due to discrimination

• Color line- metaphor for racial discrimination and legalized segregation that remained after slavery

• Double consciousness- struggle of subordinated groups in opressive society. a way to examine unequal realities of American life

  • Resulted from social alienation through racism and discrimination.

    • Also fostered adaption and resistance

TOPIC 3.8 Lifting as We Climb: Uplift Ideologies and Black Women’s Rights and Leadership

Strategies for racial uplift

• Booker T Washington- leader who advocated for industrial education, training, economic advancement, and independence

  • The Atlanta Exposition Address- suggested that Black americans should remain intthe south, gain education for industrial before political rights

• Du Bois- promoted a liberal arts education and a civil rights agenda.

• Educators and activists- promoted women education, suffrage, and inclusion

  • Nannie Helen Burroughs- Make Shorter: She was a suffragist, church leader, and daughter of enslaved people. She helped establish the National Association of Colored Women in 1896 and founded a school for women and girls in Washington, D.C. in 1909.

• Literature poetry and music encouraged pride, heritage, and cultural acheivement

  • James Weldon Johnson- created “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” that widely became known as the Black National Anthem

Black Women Promoted Advancement

• Advocated for rights during Suffrage movement in the 20th century

• Black women’s leadership- rebuilt communities and generations after slavery

  • Entered the workforce, organized labor unions, and supported families

  • Became leaders as Churchwomen and in denomination organizations countering race and gender stereotypes to exemplify the dignity, beauty, and strength

TOPIC 3.9 Black Organizations and Institutions

Promoting Economic Stability and Well-Being in the early 20th century

• Created businesses organizations that catered and improved black communities’ independence

• Black Press- provided local and national news, documented aspects of community life, served as a vehicle for protesting discrimination

• Methodist Episcopal Churchs - AME was found in 1816 as first Black Christin denomination and soon Black Churches transformed Christian worship greatly throughout the country

  • Churches served as safe spaces for organization, worship, and culture

  • Developed activists, musicians, and leaders

• Madam CJ Walker- first woman millionaire who highlighted the beauty of Black advancement and supported community iniatives

TOPIC 3.10 HBCUs, Black Greek Letter Organizations, and Black Education

Historical Black College or University

• Discrimination and segregation led African Americans to create their colleges

• The first were private colleges created by white philanthropists.

• Wilberforce University- founded by AME and first fully owned by African Americans

• Second Morrill Act (1890)- states must either create separate black universities or race wasn’t a determining factor in admissions.

  • Led to more federal funding for HBCUs

• Emphasized liberal arts and vocational industrial model

  • Ex Fisk U and Tuskegee Institute respectively

• Primary providers of postsecondary education for Blacks

Impact on educational and professional lives of African Americans nationally and internationally

• Transformed access to education, training, and economic development

• Spaces for cultural pride, scholarship and addressing racial equity gaps in higher education

• BGLOs- Black Greek-letter organizations were mostly white institutions

  • Black Americans found spaces for support for self-improvement, educational excellence, leadership, and lifelong community service.

• Fisk Jubilee Singers- student choir at Fisk University that introduced religious/musical tradition of African American spirituals on global stage

TOPIC 3.11 The New Negro Movement and the Harlem Renaissance

Self-definition, racial pride, and cultural innovation

• Encouraged defining personal identity and political advocation during times of nadir

• Black aesthetic- reflected artistic and cultural achievements of Black creators

• Innovations in musc- blues, jazz, art, and literature

  • Artistic innovations countered racial stereotypes, reflecting African American migrations from South to urban North and Midwest.

• Encompassed cultural and political movements

  • Harlem Renaissance- was a cultural revolution in the 1920s and 1930s that brought about a flourishing of Black literary, artistic, and intellectual life in the United States.

TOPIC 3.12 Photography and Social Change

Use of visual media

• Black scholars, artists, and activists used photography to counter racist representations used during Jim Crow laws

• Photographers focused on history, folk culture, and pride in an African heritage

  • Ex. James Van Der Zee- change perceptions of African Americans by showcasing the qualities of the "new negro." They depicted Black life in different aspects like work, leisure, education, religion, and home, highlighting the free-spiritedness, beauty, and dignity of Black individuals.

TOPIC 3.13 Envisioning Africa in Harlem Renaissance Poetry

Explanation

• Writers and artists during this period explored African heritage instead of colonialism and slavery

  • Incorporated Africa and African American identity and heritage for personal reflection

• Used imagery to counter stereotypes about African people and landscapes

TOPIC 3.14 Symphony in Black: Black Performance in Music, Theater, and Film

Contributions to American music in the 1930s and 1940s

• During Harlem Renaissance and Jazz Age- opportunities for record labels, musicians, and vocalists appeared and also became popular

  • Radio allowed people to listen to blues, gospel, and jazz nationwide

• Black music

  • Roots in slavery

  • Acoustic music from the south

  • Electric version from the North during Great Migration

    • Themes such as despair and hope, love, and loss, using repetition, call and response, and vernacular language

• Jazz

  • Described as a distinctive contribution to the arts

  • Developed in New Orleans

  • New styles followed migration to north, midwest, and west

  • Continues to evolve today.

Contributions to American theater and film in the 1930s and 1940s.

• Flourished in cabarets on broadway and film

• Ethel Waters- first African American to start in own television show 1930s

• All black musicals- ex Cabin in the Sky (1943)

  • Black actors and dancers

  • Ethel Waters

TOPIC 3.15 Black History Education and African American Studies

Effort to research and disseminate Black history to Black students.

• New Negro movement writers believed that US promoted the idea that Blacks had no cultural contributions

  • Led to feeling inferior

  • In response, Black Americans were urged to study history, experience, and own education

• The New Negro movement challenged the idea that African Americans had no history or culture.

  • Created literature and educational materials

  • Getting Black history taught in schools- all Black students could learn about the movement.

Aims of the Black intellectual tradition

• Started 250 years ago

• Emerged through work of Black activists, writers, educatiors, and archivists

• African Free School- 18th century provided education to enslaved andfree Blacks in NY

  • Prepare black abolitionists

• NY public libarary- basis for Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

• W.E.B. Du Bois’s- also contributed research and writings for sociological surveys

• Zora Neale Hurston- anthropologist who documented culture and linguistic expression of Black Americans

• Carter Godwin Woodson- founded Black history month, published works on Black perspectives in history

TOPIC 3.16 The Great Migration

Causes

• One of the largest migrationtions in US history from south to North, Midwest, and western during 1910-1970

• Labor shortages during WWI and WII led to Black people seeking jobs in Industrial areas in the North

• Environmental factors- floods, boll weevils, and spoiled crops led to migration

• Dangers of lynching and racial violence posed a threat in the Jim Crow South

• railway system and Black press allowed for migration

  • Trains offered travel and press offered instruction and support

Impact on America

• Transformed American cities, black culture, and black communities

• African American culture spread to New York, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Los Angeles

• Shift from rural to urban dwelling

  • New connections with the north and environment

• Increasing racial tensions

  • Some employers arrested black americans before they could leave

• National Urban league- was an interracial organization in 1910 that helped migrating black americans from south to northern urban life. Helped acclimation through secure housing and jobs. Later supported March on washington and worked with Southern Christian Leadership Conference during the Civil Rights movement

TOPIC 3.17 Afro-Caribbean Migration

Reasons for migration- 20th century

• Decline of Carribean economies during WWI

• Expansion of US political and economic interests

  • Panama canal acquisition 1903- led to black people seeking opportunities for economic, political, and education

Effects of migration

• More than 140000 migrants and most settled in NY and Florida from 1899-1937

• Sparked tensions but created blends of black culture in the US

• Increased religious and linguistic diversity in African American communities

  • Catholic, Anglican, Episcopalian, non-english speaking

• Radicalization of black thought, black empowerment, autonomy, social movements

TOPIC 3.18 The Universal Negro Improvement Association

UNIA- Universal Negro Improvement Association

• Marcus Garvey- led largest pan-african movement in Black American history

  • Through UNIA aimed to unite black people, maintained thousands of members internationally

  • Popularized phrase “Africa for the Africans” through back to africa movement

  • Founded Black Star Line- a steamship company focused on repatriating African Americans to Africa

  • Outlined objective of UNIA for Black liberation from colonialism in African diaspora

    • Became model for nationalist movement for African Americans

    • The UNIA's red, black, and green flag remains a symbol of Black solidarity and freedom globally.

• This association helped African Americans who were discriminated

  • Helped embrace african heritage

  • Industrial, political, and educational advancement and self-determination

  • separatist Black institutions

Effect of transatlantic abolitionism

• Led to belonging to American ideals through abolition, freedom, representation, and racial equality

  • Believed in birthright citizenship

• Frederick Douglass- famous abolitionist but not protected from recapture

  • Some found refuge in other nations

• Anti-emigrationists- celebrated independence but believed in exploitation based on race

  • Contradictory