African-American – Key Concepts Flashcards
Equal protection under the law
Amendment 14 made clear the right to citizenship of all those born (or naturalised) in the US and that their rights could not be removed without ‘due process of law’. Section 2 made it clear that if the southern states tried to stop blacks voting, their punishment would be to receive a smaller representation in the Federal House of Representatives. But this later clause was never properly implemented.
Civil rights remained theoretical
In the north, free black people frequently faced intimidation when they attempted to register to vote in elections so they could not always exercise their rights. Craft unions in the North excluded them from skilled work. Aggressive competition for work with Irish immigrants in the cities and unrelenting discrimination ensured that black males were confined to menial work, whilst black women were mainly confined to work as domestic servants. Even after the Emancipation of all slaves in 1865, a common theme during the next hundred years was the difference between the civil rights granted in theory and those actually granted in practice.
Support of freed slaves
The Bureau’s help included finding homes and employment and providing food, education and medical care. Schools were set up and new hospitals were built funded by a mixture of Congressional funds and missionary societies
40 acres and a mule
This phrase became common after it was first used by Union Gen William T Sherman in a field order at the end of the civil war. The idea was that 40 acres of land with a mule to pull the plough was the minimum amount with which to make a living. Ideological distaste for interfering with property rights (as well as Johnson’s amnesties) meant only 800,000 acres was eventually available. 40,000 freed slaves in Georgia and South Carolina briefly acquired land but then lost it again.
The start of formal segregation
Recent research has cast doubt on the views of eminent historian C Vann Woodward (1974) that segregation did not really develop until the 1880s: in South Carolina and Mississippi it was common early
Democrats control of the South
Democrats were the dominant party in the South after 1865, Republicans being widely hated for being responsible for their defeat in the Civil War. The largely successful campaign to prevent African Americans voting meant that, once the northern influence retreated in the 1870s, the south became A virtual one-party state – a Democrat one.
Labour intensive crops and diversification
Cotton and tobacco required more workers than other crops as machinery could not always be used. Cotton bolls do not all ripen at once, so machine cultivation would have been indiscriminate. With tobacco, insecticides discoloured the leaves and so insects were removed by hand. Only 3.7% of African-American farmland was planted in crops besides cotton or corn, compared with 10.1% of farmland owned by whites. The Diversification was into vegetables, fruits and other crops encouraged by the rapidly growing city markets.
Slow movement towards more land ownership
African Americans held 3 million acres of land towards the end of reconstruction in 1875. This rose to 15 million by 1910. 75% of the land was still subject to sharecropping
Segregation in public places
Parks, shops, playgrounds and cemeteries were included, as where public facilities such as swimming pools and places of entertainment, like theatres and, later, cinemas. As professional sport grew this was also subject to segregation despite teams wanting the best players regardless of racial background. By 1900 major baseball League fixtures involved segregated teams.
