The white backlash in the former Confederacy Flashcards
Why, while emancipation freed the slaves, did it it also serve to liberate racism?
- Under slavery, many Southern whites had a paternalistic attitude towards black people as child-like dependants - when slavery ended, they perceived black males as dangerous.
What did Southern whites claim about black people after emancipation?
- That black people were immature, irrational, open to corruption, and therefore unfit to posses voting rights
- They claimed they were frightened and resentful of the’ inferior’ black race
What did many white Southerners depict Reconstruction as?
An era of black rule, rape, murder and arson, and called for black disenfranchisement.
What were the white supremacist groups during Reconstruction?
- The Ku Klux Klan
- The White League
What were white supremacists attitude to black people, in terms of voting?
They used violence to stop them voting.
When was the KKK established and what was it?
1866 - an armed white racist group - a secret order established in Tennessee by war hero General Nathan Bedford Forrest
- Aimed to restore white supremacy
How quickly did the KKK grow in members?
- Grew rapidly between 1868 and 1871 - Forrest estimated 40,000 members in Tennessee alone, and roughly 1/2 million across the South
How did Southern democrats engage with the KKK?
They encouraged and colluded in Klan terrorism, which targeted black officials, schools and churches.
Why did white supremacists see black schools, churches and officials as a threat?
- Black literacy doubled during Reconstruction and literacy, along with office-holding and the vote, empowered black people
- The black schools and churches provided over 25% of black officials, and black church ministers provided education and encouraged voting
- Teachers too encouraged voting because political power led to increased funds for education
What did the KKK do, fearful of the threat posed by an educated black population?
Destroyed 25 schools and killed 50 black teachers in Mississippi, in response to the state legislature’s passage of a public school law in 1870.
Why did the laws that Republican state governments introduce, to try to stop the KKK, prove hard to enforce?
- Klansmen gave other alibis, were frequently represented on juries, and when Governor Holden of North Carolina used the state militia against the Klan, the state legislature condemned him for ‘subverting the personal liberty’ of the Klansmen
Who fought against the KKK, in black majority areas?
Black militias - thousands of black Americans were killed.
What happened in 1871 in Union County, South Carolina?
500 KKK members laid siege to the county prison and lynched 8 black prisoners.
How many black people and white Republicans voters were murdered during the 1868 elections? What did this result in?
1,300
- This resulted in many Republican and black voters being put off from attending public events through fear of their lives
- The KKK also targeted carpetbaggers and scalawags
- Murder was real for anyone that stood up for black people
During the wake of the KKK’s violence, how many black legislatures were murdered?
7
Other than schools and churches what else was attacked by the KKK?
Black business - white people who conducted business with blacks were also attacked by the Klan.
Where did the KKK thrive?
- Where blacks were a minority such as South Carolina, where in
What was the response to the prison lynchings in 1871 in Union County?
Local law enforcement in the south sympathised with the Klan members, who were often acquitted due to a supposed lack of sufficient evidence.
How in 1870-71 did Congress response to appeals for help from several state governors?
By the passage of three Enforcement Acts - protected the rights of black Americans to vote, hold office, serve on juries and receive equal protection under the law - the 3rd of these acts was the KKK Act.
What did the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 do?
Gave President Grant the legal and military power to crush the Klan, and it ended most of the Klan violence.
What happened after President Grant imposed martial law in several areas of the South?
Hundreds of suspected Klansmen were imprisoned - however, ex-Confederate soldiers continued to use violence and intimidation against Republicans and black Republicans in particular, and other white supremacist groups sprang up.
What did historian Stephen Tuck (2010) described the armed White League as?
‘basically the Klan without the white sheets’
When and where was the first White League set up?
In Louisiana after a disputed election in 1873 which led to the establishment of a black militia that held the town of Colfax for a fortnight.
What happened in the ‘Colfax massacre’, in Louisiana?
Over 100 black Americans were killed.
What happened to Republican officials in Louisiana in 1874?
Assassinated by the White League.
What gains did Reconstruction bring to black people:
1) Political experience as voters and as elected officials
2) Freedom of movement - enabled those who so desired to move to Southern cities (between 1865-70 the black population of the South’s ten largest cities doubled) or to the North or West
3) The confidence and opportunity to build and benefit from their own institutions - black churches, Freedmen’s Bureau, education, politics, business, lawyers, doctors
4) Black illiteracy rates fell from 90% in 1860 to 70% in 1880
Why did Reconstruction come to an end in the late 1870s?
1) Although President Grant had opposed KKK violence in 1870, in 1875 he declared the ‘whole public’ to be ‘tired out with the annual, autumnal outbreaks’ of racial violence during elections - he was keen to end the North’s concentration upon the South and to effect a reconciliation with White Southerners
2) Amnesty Act
3) Northerners increasingly lost interest in the Southern black problem - evidenced by the collapse of the Freedmen’s Bureau in 1872
4) Radical Reconstruction had alienated most white Republican in the South, even though it had not greatly increased black power and influence
5) From 1873 - US suffered severe economic depression - voters blamed the Republicans - Democrats gained control of the US Congress
What and when was the Amnesty Act?
1872:
- Amnesty Act returned voting and office-holding rights to 150,000 ex-confederates
When was it clear that the Republican Party and the North were uninterested in the South and willing to allow the restoration of white political supremacy?
When President Rutherford B. Hayes withdrew all federal troops from the Southern states in 1877.
