reconstruction and rights 2011

"If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.” – Abraham Lincoln

Changing Laws doesn’t change attitudes

“ Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law.”--Supreme Court Supreme Court

Justice HarlanJustice Harlan

• Rebuilding of the nation after the war

• Putting the United States back together would take time and many decisions

• New agencies and amendments would be created to deal with the new issues the US was facing

Changing Laws doesn’t change attitudes

“We want you to be free, but don’t live next to me”

-Northern -Northern CitizenCitizen

• Given the task of feeding and clothing war refugee

• Used left over military supplies

• Helped people find work and created schools to educate people

Changing Laws doesn’t change attitudes

“Separate but equal”

-Plessy V. -Plessy V. FergusonFerguson

• 1863 President Lincoln- Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction

• Lincoln wanted to forgive Southerners

• But Confederate government officials and military officers were not pardoned – No longer allowed to vote in the

United States.

Changing Laws doesn’t change attitudes

“A White man’s government!”

-Ku Klux Klan-Ku Klux Klan

• Lincoln realized that the South was in chaos with thousands unemployed, homeless, and hungry.

• Plus newly freed African-Americans (known then as freedmen) were seeking food and shelter from the Union.

• Freedmen’s Bureau- In March 1865 Congress established the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned lands– Feed and clothed war refugees in the

South using surplus war supplies– Helped African-Americans find jobs.

Changing Laws doesn’t change attitudes

“I am for the immediate, unconditional, and universal enfrachisement of the black man, in every States of the Union.”

-Fredrick -Fredrick DouglassDouglass

• April 14, 1865 President Abraham Lincoln was shot while attending a performance at Ford's Theatre

• Lincoln's assassin was actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth

• Booth hoped to create chaos and overthrow the Federal government by assassinating Lincoln

• Black Codes- laws passed on the state and local level mainly in the rural Southern states to limit rights of African Americans

• Attempted to control the labor, movements and activities of African Americans.

• There were signs were posted to keep blacks from integrating with the whites. – “If Black, stay back!"

• 13th Amendment abolished slavery completely in the United States (1865) .

• 14th was designed to ensure that all former slaves were granted automatic United States citizenship, and that they would have all the rights and privileges as any other citizen (1868).

• 15th Amendment It ensured that a person's race, color, or prior history as a slave could not be used to bar that person from voting (1870).

In 1865 Congress established this agency to help war refugees known as the

__________________.

• Freedman’s Bureau

What was the period immediately after the Civil War called, during which efforts

were made to rebuild the South?

• Reconstruction

• Southerners frustrated with Republicans running their states, they organized secret societies to undermine their rule.

• The largest group was the Ku Klux Klan. Created in 1866 by former Confederate soldiers in Tennessee. Hooded, white-robed Klan members rode in bands at night terrorizing African-Americans, White Republicans, and teachers in African American Schools

• Southern leaders realized the South could never return to the pre-Civil war agricultural economy.

• Called for the creation of a “New South” based on a strong industrial economy.

• Thousands of miles of railroads were built along with dozens of new industries.

The _______ amendment declared that the right to vote “Shall not be denied…on the account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

• 15th

The _______ amendment outlawed slavery in the United States.

• 13th

The 13th, 14th & 15th Amendments, known as Reconstruction Amendments, were designed to

ensure the rights and freedom of

• Former slaves

• After Reconstruction ended, African Americans returned to plantations owned by whites,

• where they worked for wages or became tenant farmers, paying rent for the land they farmed.

• Most tenant farmers ended up becoming sharecroppers.

• They paid a share of their crops to cover their rent and farming costs.

• Although sharecropping allowed African American farmers to control their own work schedule and working conditions, it also trapped them in poverty because they could not make enough money to pay off their debts and buy their own land.

• Disenfranchisement- To deny privileges, protection, and especially the right to vote– Poll Taxes- Tax paid if you

wanted to vote. Many African Americans could not afford to pay this tax

– Literacy Tests- A test was given in order to register to vote. These tests were designed to make anyone fail if they wanted them to.

– Grandfather Clauses- Since the imposition of those requirements also could impact the number of poor whites voting, Southern legislatures introduced the “grandfather clause," which exempted voters from the restrictions if their grandfathers had voted. This clearly eliminated the blacks.

• Literacy tests were used to keep people of color -- and sometimes poor whites --from voting. They were administered at the discretion of the officials in charge of voter registration. If the official wanted a person to pass, he could ask the easiest question on the test – for example, "Who is the president of the United States?"

• The same official might require a black person to answer every single question correctly, in an unrealistic amount of time, in order to pass.

Civil Rights Act of 1875• “all persons…shall be entitled to

the full and equal enjoyment of the accommodations…of inns, public conveyances on land or water, theaters, and other places of public amusement.”

• The act was declared unconstitutional in 1883 by an all-white Supreme Court.

What were two ways through which African Americans were denied the right to vote?

1. Poll taxes

2. Literacy tests

3. intimidation

What was the purpose of a literacy test?

• To keep Blacks and poor Whites from voting in the South

• The Birth of Jim Crow– 1892 - Plessy v.

Ferguson– Separate but

Equal (it was never equal)

Aimed at separating the races in the South– Forbade marriage

between blacks and whites

– Separate schools, streetcars, waiting rooms, rr, coaches, elevators, witness stands, drinking fountains, and public restrooms

• Slavery banned

• Free to work for wages

• Could move and live anywhere

• Many families reunited

• Could serve in political office

• Sharecropping put in place• Ability to vote and hold office restricted• White leadership regained control of

southern governments

Changing Laws doesn’t change attitudes

Black CodesBlack Codes

Jim Crow LawsJim Crow Laws

Plessy V. FergusonPlessy V. Ferguson

Literacy TestsLiteracy Tests

Poll TaxesPoll Taxes

Grandfather ClauseGrandfather Clause

Ku Klux KlanKu Klux Klan

Forced SegrationForced Segration