African Americans After Reconstruction

After the American Civil War more than just a divided nation needed to be reunited. The states of the Confederacy had been broken. The destruction of their economy was total. From the insolvency of their currency, to the decimation of so much of the white male population to the sudden loss of billions of dollars of property in the form of freedom for nearly 4 million African slaves. What is more is the ex-slaves faced what seemed like insurmountable odds in trying to find loved ones and make a start in a prostate region without any real economic means or many skills that would assist them in this effort. The Southern white population would surely fight them at every step, so any improvement beyond their sudden freedom would depend largely on the benevolence of Northern lawmakers and charitable acts from liberal whites from Northern states heading south to assist them in this massive undertaking. The results of these efforts are mixed and in the end had no lasting impact, but the period of Reconstruction showed promise, but in the end failed due to a lack of political will and interest in the plight of the former slave in the South. It was understood by all that the passage of the 13th Amendment was an inevitable outcome of the Civil War. President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation had already freed slaves in the
Rebel States, and the human and economic sacrifice of the War would mean nothing if the issue of slavery still existed. Beyond this however, the debate raged over what if anything should be done with this newly freed population and what should be done with the white population of the rebellious States. The original efforts of Lincoln’s mild Reconstruction and the Congressional version of the Wade-Davis bill might have led to some compromise had Lincoln lived, but Lincoln’s Assassination began the long bitter path of Reconstruction pitting Andrew Johnson against more radical members of the Republican Party. How this played out for the former slaves was to see an increase in their rights as freedmen, but with no economic provisions or protections to guarantee their freedom would be longstanding.
The Freedmen’s Bureau was Congress’ first successful effort at assisting Blacks in the South post Civil War. It provided educational services, food, and in some modest cases, attempted to place former slaves on abandoned or confiscated lands. However, the case for “40 acres and a mule” that many former slaves felt was their due, never materialized (nor was it ever truly considered). As part of the fight between President Johnson and Radicals in Congress, the Freedmen’s Bureau’s life was extended and it was given the power to cancel provisions within the Black Codes that tied the former slaves to the land due fines or debts. Congress also attempted to pass a Civil Rights act in 1866, but had it struck down by the Courts, thus leading to the Passage of the 14th Amendment to grant all persons born in or naturalized citizens permanent citizenship and therefore equal protection under the law. This move towards an increasingly harsh Reconstruction was the result of President Johnson’s recalcitrance, increasing anger towards an unrepentant South, and Republican fears of a resurgent Democratic Party. Regardless, the move towards a more Radical Reconstruction forced Southern States to ratify the 13th and 14th Amendments before they could be reentered into the Union and for three States (Virginia, Texas, and Mississippi) they also needed to ratify the 15th for reentry. The 15th Amendment was introduced to protect the right of suffrage to all males who were citizens of the United States. This was an attempt to keep the South from disenfranchising the Freedmen. Despite all of these efforts however, the failure to ensure economic independence, coupled with a waning interest in Reconstruction by Northerners, doomed any possibility of long term success for Reconstruction. As the Southern States were readmitted, many that had majority white populations (the upper South) easily slid into white dominated governments that quickly found ways to disenfranchise and economically limit Blacks. They were assisted in their endeavors by terrorist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan and the Knights of the White Camelia. These groups would ride nightly to terrorize blacks and whites who supported Reconstruction. Though the government was successful for a time with the passage of the Enforcement Acts in curbing the violence of the Klan, it never was capable of challenging the overriding desire and efforts of white Southern society to dismantle any form of permanent equality for African Americans in the South. Without land, it was very easy to set up an economic system, sharecropping, to turn the clock back to the production of the Antebellum South (cotton) without the responsibility of providing or investing in slaves. This left most Blacks in the South mired in agriculture and domestic service, and thus in poverty. Not that their counterparts in the North were fairing any better. Feelings of white superiority, in the form of the new doctrine of Social Darwinism, continued to make things difficult for newly arrived immigrants, freed Blacks and working class whites, as owners consistently pitted each group against the other increasing racial and ethnic tensions between groups. This is one of the reasons that Northerners, both Democratic and Republican, began to lose interest in the Reconstructed South. The many scandals of the Grant Administration along with the Panic of 1873 further undermined interest in African American rights in the South. Though it seems that the period of Reconstruction was an utter loss for the former slaves, there were some areas that did see improvement.
Blacks did manage to remove themselves from the control of white churches and establish their own places of worship. These would become vital to Black communities throughout the South and would later serve to promote efforts to challenge segregation many years later. The educational systems established, though segregated and severely underfunded, did provide the beginnings of efforts to educate Black children. This was important for a group that had been denied literacy as a part of law during
bondage. Unfortunately, however, Reconstruction ended without altering too much of what was needed to change the direction of Blacks in the South. Shortly after the deal that is know as the Compromise of 1877, bringing Rutherford B. Hayes to the White House in exchange for the removal of the last Federal Troops from the South, the Constitutional rights of Black Americans disappeared from the South and even in many Northern regions of the Midwest. They also saw their economic advancement largely curtailed, though many still managed to prosper in a system that was designed to hold them back. The South was “redeemed”, and African Americans would have to wait nearly 100 years for many of the promises of Reconstruction to once again be theirs.