African Americans Flashcards
when was the proclamation?
January 1863, it had no legislative power or constitutional amendments
13th amendment
1865, abolition of slavery
freedmens bureau
provided food, medical services, and schools to freedmen and negotiated work contracts between masters and workers
civil rights act
1866, was in response to the black codes, which were state laws made to restrict the rights of blacks.
The act declared that all persons born in the United States were now citizens, without regard to race, color, or previous condition. As citizens they could make and enforce contracts, sue and be sued, give evidence in court, and inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property.
Johnson vetoed it but it was still passed by a two third majority
A few weeks later a second freedmen bureau act was passed
14th amendment
1866
citizenship
forbidding of abridging privileges and immunities
forbidding of deprivation of life, liberty, or property without due law
president grant
1868 grant became president
was prepared to support radical reconstruction and aligned himself with the radical republicans
1870 he supported the 15th amendment, elected for a second term
15th amendment
1870
you cannot be denied the right to vote due to colour, race
- did not give any guidance on women
enforcement acts and KKK
federal
crime to restrict civil and political rights of others
martial law could be enforced
summary of situation in the south / position of AAs
johnson didnt want to do much but 14th/15th amendment, civil rights act, freedmens bureau, reconstruction act
economy relied on the cotton industry and the principle of owning slaves in a ‘peculiar institution’
Abraham Lincoln
murdered 14th april 1865,
Lincoln was somewhat for equality amongst blacks and whites however his main goal was to prevent the succeeding of the confederates from the union
Andrew Johnson
1865-69
Previously a slave owner in the south from Tennessee, vice president and became president when Lincoln was assassinated. Wanted the confederate states to return to the union as soon as possible, eg. before congress met in december 1865.
Johnson did not bring about much change as many Southern governors who would’ve otherwise been banned from standing again were pardoned. He used a system of provisional state governors who would work together with white governors to accept that slavery was illegal.
Reconstruction confederate style wanted to restore the old order and did not promote african american equality.
tried to stop 13th amendment
freedmens bureau was still set up
near impeachment of Johnson
Congress refused to admit southern congressmen back into congress December 1865. Republicans were mostly moderate yet wanted some change for blacks in the south.
Johnson instead sided with democrats in the North. Vetoed the expansion of the freedmens bureau
1866 election he also performed badly when trying to establish a new national union convention party - essentially conservative republicans and democrats
granted pardons to nearly every southern leader
military reconstruction act
1867
southern states were to be placed under supervision by a FEDERAL governor
They had to elect constitutional conventions which accepted black suffrage and ratify the 14th amendment
Military present in the states (never more than 20,000)
By 1870 every Southern state had been readmitted back into the union
examples of Jim Crow laws and disenfranchising
complete violation of human rights and enforcement of segregation
Georgia - $2 poll on voting, burial of blacks could not be on white land
Florida - Separate schooling for black and white children
Alabama - separate waiting rooms for buses
South Carolina - Negroes could not possess firearms of liquor
Louisiana - ‘Negroes could not rent or own a house in the centre of town or reside in the centre of town’ encouraged the rise of ghettos. Eye clinics had to be separate
Mississipi: inter marriage was forbidden
North Carolina: textbooks could not be shared between black and white schools
disenfranchisement:
grandfather clause, 1866
literacy tests
understanding clauses
situation of freedmen
sharecropping or labour contracts which just encouraged white ownership and supremacy death from consumption or cholera no education, disenfranchised no economic or personal liberty immigration to North starvation unemployment some had to turn to criminality or begging
Booker T Washington
Formerly a slave in Tennessee, born 1856 pre-emancipation
The Atlanta compromise speech - 1895, idea that blacks should work in vocational areas and that is just as acceptable as something more intellectual (example - poetry)
National Urban League and National Negroe Business League
Up from slavery: An autobiography 1901
Tuskegee institute 1881 Alabama - an African American school for vocational training
Due to his alliance with many influential whites (for example the president) he did not speak out as much against Jim Crow laws/ segregation instead tried to improve the economic and work related aspects of African American’s lives
Could be seen as the only way to have an influence at the time
W.E.B Dubois
Born in the North, to wealthy parents, was never a slave
educated at x and Harvard (was the first African american to receive a PHD from there) Much more intellectual than Washington and was a socialist, he later joined the American Communist party
Part of the Niagara movement which opposed racism and segregation however had poor management and little funding. (Had some support from women)
Dubois also wanted to work in cooperation with whites
Idea of Pan-Americanism AND talented tenth
The souls of black folk
Most influential work was probably writing for The Crisis (the magazine for The NAACP) which wrote about segregation, lynchings etc. This became very popular (50,000 copies in 1917 and 100,000 by 1920)
Influence of Washington
Gained a lot of support from African Americans in the initial post emancipation period and was the leading voice for African Americans despite ignoring many of the hardships they were subjected to such as lynching
His phillosophy of personal gain and improving your own propects as an African-American could be seen as appealing for freedmen as they could decide their own future
Successful court cases on behalf of the NAACP
Smith vs Allwright 1944
Brown vs education system 1955
impact of the military reconstruction act
way of controlling Johnson
Put blacks and northerners into power
Carpetbaggers - northerners who had moved to the south
Scalawags - southern white republicans
Rise of black representation in federal government and congress. Only a brief phase before blacks were disenfranchised again
the problems with reconstruction
economy - glut of cotton in the south due to high supply but low demand. Crops were shared in a fixed ratio which did not accommodate for changing market
farmers easily went into debt
Expansion of roads and railways meant easy transportation of goods but less money to agriculture
The south became extremely poor 1860 - 30% of nations wealth
1870 - 12% of nations wealth
the role and attitude of the court
idea of separate but equal
no belief that discrimination could be legislated
eg. Justice Henry Billings one of the judges from the supreme court wrote an explanation for plessy vs ferguson that the legislature and state government was powerless in trying to stop federal cases of discrimination or widespread views of black inferiority
court cases which illustrate the governments unwillingness to implement change
Plessy vs Ferguson 1892
Homer Plessy was an octoroon (1/8th African American) he went in the white area of a rail car in Louisiana but was still arrested
Williams vs Mississippi 1989
The court argued that the poll tax and literacy tests were not discriminatory specifically towards blacks.
Cumming vs Richmond County Board of Education
$45,000 tax levied on Richmond county, Georgia, to improve schools. However, it was evident that this money was only going to benefit white schools. the expansion of one black school to four increased and encouraged segregation
founders of NAACP
Ida Wells - Black journalist
W.E.B Dubois - black intellectual
Oswald Villard - white journalist
Mary White Ovington - white suffragette
aims/foundation of the NAACP
Sprung from the Niagara movement and race riots of 1908 in Springfield, Illnois
founded in 1909 with the aim of improving racism in discrimination by legal/constitutional measures and working through the court
Beginnings of NAACP 1909-1930’s (5)
The crisis was an influential magazine written by Dubois which uncovered truth about sexual inequalities, lynching and Jim Crow laws
Less influential or un-concrete actions included flying a flag from their office in NY every time a negroe man was lynched, and protest against pro-KKK film birth of a nation..these actions would not doing much to elicit a change and seemed mostly symbolic
Had mainly white leadership at the start
Elaine race riot 1919 saved 12 men from being executed after their confessions were extracted using the electric chair/torture
NAACP 1930’s-1950’s
Legal departement of NAACP was not set up until 1940 by Thurgood Marshall despite its aim to tackle racism through the court
Henderson vs US - segregation was illegal on railway dining cars due to the interstate commerce act
Sweatt vs Painter allowing a black Texan student to go to a white law school
McLaurinvs Oklahoma State Regents - a black student could not be physically separated from a white student in uni of oklahoma
NAACP 1950’S-1960’S
1955 Brown vs Topeka board of education, abolished segregation in all southern schools due to underfunding of southern schools disproving idea of separate but equal. Brown argued that his daughter should go to white school as it would provide her with a better education and the black one was 20 blocks away.
Inspired/encouraged other peaceful groups such as Kings southern christian leadership conference SCLC or SNCC non-violent student coordinating comittee Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks
however they distanced themselves from black power movements and failed to evolve and adapt to the times, mainly due to a gerontocracy within their leadership.
Hayes-Tilden compromise
1877
dispute over who had won the election Hayes - the republican or Tilden - the democrat.
Allies of the Republican Party candidate Rutherford Hayes met in secret with moderate southern Democrats in order to negotiate acceptance of Hayes’ election. The Democrats agreed not to block Hayes’ victory on the condition that Republicans withdraw all federal troops from the South, thus consolidating Democratic control over the region. As a result of the so-called Compromise of 1877 (or Compromise of 1876), Florida, Louisiana and South Carolina became Democratic once again, effectively marking the end of the Reconstruction era.
Martin Luther King - list of peaceful protests (9)
- Little rock 1957
- Greensboro sit ins 1961
- Montgomery bus boycott 1961
- Albany 1961
- Birmingham 1963
- Mississippi freedom summer 1964
- March on Washington 1965
Little Rock protest
1957
9 students enrolled in little rock white school in arkansas however they were refused entry
Local mayor enforced the national guard to come in and refuse entry to african american students,
eisenhower then had to send in state troops (first time this had happened since reconstruction) to uphold brown vs board of education
Elizabeth Eckford, girl who was separated from the rest of the African American students
effect of Brown vs Board of education
plessy vs ferguson ruled against by supreme court
by 1957 only 11% of southern schools were segregated (this only came later with Reagan’s bussing policy) showed de jure change was not sufficient
many of the rocks 9 went on to go to university / be succesful campaigners for black rights,
White Backlash
revival of the KKK
250,000 white membership of white’s citizen council which demanded segregation in schools
Eisenhower not supportive
lots of attacks on the NAACP
101 southern congressmen signed the southern manifesto opposing segregation
Brown II, did not state when/how desegregation should be implemented
