The First Years of Freedom

Immediately after the Civil War, a time known as Reconstruction, the federal government attended to the problems of helping the newly freed slaves find jobs, housing, and the means to acquire an education. But as African Americans struggled to enter society after the Civil War, forces of racism worked against them.

In many areas, laws blocked their right to vote, move freely in society, and own property. Lynching and killing of African Americans also occurred regularly. The federal government became less and less effective at providing opportunities and protections, but African Americans began to establish their own institutions that came to play an important role in the struggle for freedom and equal rights.

Reconstruction

The period of rebuilding that followed the Civil War became known as Reconstruction. A major concern during Reconstruction was the condition of the approximately 4 million freedmen (freed slaves). Most of them had no homes, were desperately poor, and could not read and write. The word also refers to the process by which the Union restored relations with the Confederate states after their defeat. Reconstruction lasted from 1865 to 1877 and was one of the most controversial periods in the nation's history. Scholars still debate its successes and failures.

To help the freed slaves and homeless whites, Congress established the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands. The agency, better known as the Freedmen's Bureau, operated from 1865 until 1872. It issued food and supplies to blacks; set up more than 100 hospitals; resettled more than 30,000 people; and founded over 4,300 schools. Some of the schools developed into outstanding black institutions, such as Atlanta University (now Clark Atlanta University), Fisk University, Hampton Institute, and Howard University.

In spite of its achievements, the Freedmen's Bureau did not solve the serious economic problems of African Americans. Most of them continued to live in poverty. They also suffered from racist threats and violence and from laws restricting their civil rights. All these problems cast a deep shadow over their new freedom.

The legal restrictions on black civil rights arose in 1865 and 1866, when many Southern state governments passed laws that became known as the black codes. These laws were like the earlier slave codes. Some black codes prohibited blacks from owning land. Others established a nightly curfew for blacks. Some permitted states to jail blacks for being jobless.

The black codes shocked a powerful group of Northern congressmen called Radical Republicans. These senators and representatives won congressional approval of the Civil Rights Act of 1866. The act gave African Americans the rights and privileges of full citizenship.

The 14th Amendment. In June 1866, Congress proposed the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which gave citizenship to blacks. It also guaranteed that all federal and state laws would apply equally to blacks and whites. In addition, the amendment barred former federal and state officeholders who had supported the Confederacy from holding high political office again.

None of the defeated Southern states had yet been readmitted into the Union, and Congress declared that none could rejoin until it ratified the 14th Amendment. Johnson urged the states to reject the amendment, and all the former Confederate states except Tennessee did so. Tennessee then became the first of the 11 defeated Southern states to be readmitted into the Union. The 14th Amendment. was finally ratified by the required number of states in 1868.

Temporary gains. The policies of the Radical Republicans enabled African Americans to participate widely in the nation's political system for the first time. Congress provided for black men to become voters in the South and called for constitutional conventions to be held in the defeated states. Many blacks attended the conventions held in 1867 and 1868. They helped rewrite Southern state constitutions and other basic laws to replace the black codes drawn up by whites in 1865 and 1866. In the legislatures elected under the new constitutions, however, blacks had a majority of seats only in the lower house in South Carolina. Most of the chief legislative and executive positions were held by Northern white Republicans who had moved to the South and by their white Southern allies. Angry white Southerners called the Northerners carpetbaggers to suggest that they could carry everything they owned when they came South in a carpetbag, or suitcase.

African Americans elected to important posts during Reconstruction included U.S. Senators Hiram R. Revels and Blanche K. Bruce of Mississippi and U.S. Representatives Joseph H. Rainey of South Carolina and Jefferson Long of Georgia. Others were Oscar J. Dunn, lieutenant governor of Louisiana; Richard Gleaves and Alonzo J. Ransier, lieutenant governors of South Carolina; P. B. S. Pinchback, acting governor of Louisiana; Francis L. Cardozo, secretary of state and state treasurer of South Carolina; and Jonathan Jasper Wright, an associate justice of the South Carolina Supreme Court. Most of them had college educations.

By the early 1870's, Northern whites had lost interest in the Reconstruction policies of the Radical Republicans. They grew tired of hearing about the continual conflict between Southern blacks and whites. Most Northern whites wanted to put Reconstruction behind them and turn to other things. Federal troops sent to the South to protect blacks were gradually withdrawn. Southern whites who had stayed away from elections to protest black participation started voting again. White Democrats then began to regain control of the state governments from the blacks and their white Republican associates. In 1877, the last federal troops were withdrawn. By the end of that year, the Democrats held power in all the Southern state governments.

Forces of Reaction

After the Civil War, most Southern whites resented the new status of blacks. The whites simply could not accept the idea of former slaves voting and holding office. As a result, attempts by Southern blacks to vote, run for public office, or enjoy other civil rights were met by increasing violence from whites in the South. In 1865 and 1866, about 5,000 Southern blacks were murdered. Forty-six blacks were killed when their schools and churches were burned in Memphis in May 1866. In July, 34 blacks were killed during a race riot in New Orleans.

Some law enforcement officers encouraged or participated in assaults on blacks. But lawless groups carried out most attacks. One of the largest, the Ku Klux Klan, was organized in 1865 or 1866 in Pulaski, Tenn. Bands of hooded Klansmen rode at night and beat and murdered many blacks and their white sympathizers. The Klan did much to deny blacks their civil and human rights throughout Reconstruction.

The federal government tried to maintain the rights of African Americans. In 1870 and 1871, Congress passed laws authorizing the use of federal troops to enforce the voting rights of blacks. These laws were known as the Enforcement Acts or the Ku Klux Klan Acts. In addition, President Ulysses S. Grant signed a proclamation demanding respect for the civil rights of all Americans.

During the late 1800's, blacks in the South increasingly suffered from segregation, the loss of voting rights, and other forms of discrimination. Their condition reflected beliefs held by most Southern whites that whites were born superior to blacks with respect to intelligence, talents, and moral standards. In 1881, the Tennessee legislature passed a law that required railroad passengers to be separated by race. In 1890, Mississippi adopted several measures that in effect ended voting by African Americans. These measures included the passing of reading and writing tests and the payment of a poll tax before a person could vote.

Several decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court enabled the Southern States to establish "legal" segregation practices. In 1883, for example, the court declared the Civil Rights Act of 1875 to be unconstitutional. That act had guaranteed blacks the right to be admitted to any public place. In addition, the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1868, had forbidden the states to deny equal rights to any person. But in 1896, the Supreme Court ruled in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson that a Louisiana law requiring the separation of black and white railroad passengers was constitutional. The court argued that segregation in itself did not represent inequality and that separate public facilities could be provided for the races as long as the facilities were equal. This ruling, known as the "separate but equal doctrine," became the basis of Southern race relations. In practice, however, nearly all the separate schools, places of recreation, and other public facilities provided for blacks were far inferior to those provided for whites.

In spite of the increasing difficulties for African Americans, a number of them won distinction during the late 1800's. For example, Samuel Lowery started a school for blacks in Huntsville, Ala., in 1875 and won prizes at international fairs for silk made at the school. In 1883, Jan E. Matzeliger invented a revolutionary shoe-lasting machine that shaped the upper part of a shoe and fastened it to the sole. Jockey Isaac Murphy won the Kentucky Derby in 1884, 1890, and 1891—the first rider to win it three times. Mary Church Terrell helped found the National Association of Colored Women in 1896 and advised government leaders on racial problems. Charles Waddell Chesnutt wrote The Conjure Woman, published in 1899. He became the first major African American novelist and short-story writer.

During the Early 1900's, discrimination against Southern blacks became even more widespread. By 1907, every Southern state required racial segregation on trains and in churches, schools, hotels, restaurants, theaters, and other public places. The Southern States also adopted an election practice known as the white primary. The states banned blacks from voting in the Democratic Party's primary elections by calling them "private affairs." But the winners of the primary elections were certain of victory in the general elections because Republican and independent candidates got little support from whites and rarely ran for office. By 1910, every Southern state had taken away or begun to take away the right of African Americans to vote.

The Ku Klux Klan also attempted to keep blacks from voting through an increased use of threats, beatings, and killings. More than 3,000 blacks had been lynched during the late 1800's, and the Klan and members of similar groups lynched hundreds more throughout the South during the early 1900's.

African Americans had little opportunity to better themselves economically. Some laws prohibited them from teaching and from entering certain other businesses and professions. Large numbers of blacks had to take low-paying jobs as farm hands or servants for white employers. Many other blacks became sharecroppers or tenant farmers. They rented a small plot of land and paid the rent with money earned from the crops. They had to struggle to survive, and many ran up huge debts to their white landlords or the town merchants.

African American Institutions Dedicated to Equality, 1865-1945

Some of the most important and enduring African American institutions dedicated to equality were formed from 1865 to 1945. Amongst the pioneering list of institutions are the Congress of Racial Equality, National Urban League, Niagara Movement, and National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

African American Heroes of the Era, 1865-1945

African Americans contributed greatly to the culture and political life of the United States from 1865 to 1945. These African American heroes were Marian Anderson, Langston Hughes, Louis Armstrong, Joe Louis, George Washington Carver, Jesse Owens, W.E.B. Du Bois, A. Philip Randolph, Duke Ellington, Booker T. Washington, Marcus Garvey, Ida Bell Wells-Barnett.