How Did African Americans Struggle To Maintain Freedom?

Despite the carnage and bloody struggle to end slavery in the American Civil War, the majority of white folks, in free and former slave states alike, continued to openly express racist, nativist, and white supremacist beliefs in their daily post-war lives. Even as the federal government passed revolutionary legislation, created protective measures and expanded the overall powers of the central government, African Americans remained systematically burdened and barred by vast inequalities that manifested in political, economic, and social spheres. Although Reconstruction expanded fundamental rights and freedoms to all people on paper, those same freedoms became subsequently diluted and diffused by reactionary and conservative elements that sought to maintain the unequal society that had
Prior to the outbreak of the American Civil War, minority abolitionist groups based most prominently out of New England sought to end slavery and advocated for the political rights of all men. Under the preface of “law, humanity, and religion,” abolitionist such as the “Anti-Slavery Society” sought to reshape public opinion and guarantee the same civil and political rights enjoyed by white men for men of color. While these ideals are directly addressed in their 1832 Constitution, there remains little mention of improving or advocating for economic or social equality. Comparably, Jourdan Anderson’s 1865 letter illustrates a necessity for equality and freedom for African Americans, but intertwines a post-war vision of equality and freedom into economic and social spheres. Particularly, Anderson, after gaining his own political freedom through the 13th Amendment, sought to exert his economic right to contract and consistently addresses his former master as a