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(1) Reconstruction: Terror Campaign of the KKK

Principles of the Ku Klux Klan “This is an institution of Chivalry, Humanity, Mercy, and Patriotism...its peculiar objects being...to protect the weak, the innocent, and the defenseless, from the indignities, wrongs, and outrages of the lawless, the violent and the brutal; to relieve the injured and oppressed; to succor the suffering and unfortunate, and especially the widows and orphans of Confederate soldiers....

Senator John Sherman of Ohio on the Ku Klux Klan, 1871 “These men are not only armed, disciplined, oath-bound members of the Confederate army, but they work in disguise; and their instruments are terror and crime....They pretended, I believe, in the outset to be representative ghosts of the Confederate dead...and they terrified men, women and children, white and black....They are secret, oath-bound; they murder, rob, plunder, whip, and scourge; and they commit these crimes, not upon the high and lofty, but upon the lowly, upon the poor, upon feeble men and women who are utterly defenseless.” Petition from Black Citizens of Frankfort, KY to Congress, 1871 “We would respectfully state that life, liberty and property are unprotected among the colored race of this state. Organized bands of desperate and lawless men, mainly composed of soldiers of the late rebel armies, armed, disciplined and disguised and bound by oath and secret obligations, have, by force, terror and violence, subverted all civil society among colored people; thus utterly rendering insecure the safety of persons and property, overthrowing all those rights…which are expressly guaranteed to us by the Constitution of the United States as amended; we believe that you are not familiar with the description of the Ku Klux Klan’s riding nightly over the country…spreading terror wherever they go, by robbing, whipping, ravishing and killing our people without provocation… The Legislature has adjourned; they refuse to enact laws to suppress Ku Klux disorder. We regard them as now being licensed to continue their dark and bloody deeds under cover of the dark night. They refuse to allow us to testify in the state courts where a white man is concerned. We find their deeds are perpetrated only upon colored men and white Republicans. Our people are driven from their homes in great numbers having no redress, only the US Courts which is in many cases unable to reach them. We would state that we have been law abiding citizens, pay our tax, and in many parts of the state our people have been driven from the polls, refused the right to vote. Many have been slaughtered while attempting to vote; we ask how long is this state of things to last? We appeal to you as law abiding citizens to enact some laws that will protect us.” Lynching: Lynching, beatings and mutilations were called the sentence of “Judge Lynch.” Some lynching photos were made into postcards designed to boost white supremacy, but the tortured bodies and grotesquely happy crowds ended up revolting as many as they scared.

Lynching By Year 1890 96

1885 184 189 179

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(2) Reconstruction: Elections / Voting

A) African Americans in Government Thirteen of the twenty-two Blacks elected to Congress during Reconstruction were ex-slaves and all were self taught or family trained. There were seven lawyers, three ministers, one banker, one publisher, two school teachers, and three college presidents. Eight had experience in state assemblies and senates. There were problems, however, as five of the first twenty Blacks elected to the House were denied their seats and ten others had their terms interrupted or delayed. Claims of vote fraud were the most common ploy used by Whites to deny an elected Black person his seat. In 1869 James Lewis, John Willis Menard, and Pinckney B.S. Pinchback — all of Louisiana — were elected and never seated. In 1870 Joseph H. Rainey of South Carolina was the first Black to be seated in the House. He ran for reelection in 1872, won, and in 1874 his reelection was challenged. He was seated after the House, after several months, voted to seat him. He won again in 1876, and was again challenged. He was seated and after eighteen months the investigating committee recommended his seat be declared vacant. The full House, however, did not vote on the matter and referred it back to committee. Carpetbaggers: After 1865, a number of northerners moved to the South to purchase land, lease plantations or partner with down-and-out planters in the hopes of making money from cotton. At first they were welcomed, as southerners saw the need for northern capital and investment to get the devastated region back on its feet. They later became an object of much scorn, as many southerners saw them as low-class and opportunistic newcomers seeking to get rich on their misfortune. In reality, most Reconstruction-era carpetbaggers were well-educated members of the middle class; they worked as teachers, merchants, journalists or other types of businessmen, or at the Freedman's Bureau, an organization created by Congress to provide aid for newly liberated black Americans. Many were former Union soldiers. In addition to economic motives, a good number of carpetbaggers saw themselves as reformers and wanted to shape the postwar South in the image of the North, which they considered to be a more advanced society. Some were corrupt opportunists. Scalawags: White southern Republicans, known to their enemies as "scalawags," made up the biggest group of delegates to the Radical Reconstruction-era legislatures. Some scalawags were established planters (mostly in the Deep South) who thought that whites should recognize blacks' civil and political rights while still retaining control of political and economic life. Many were former Whigs (conservatives) who saw the Republicans as the successors to their old party. The majority of the scalawags were non-slaveholding small farmers as well as merchants, artisans and other professionals who had remained loyal to the Union during the Civil War. Many lived in the northern states of the region, and a number had either served in the Union Army or been imprisoned for Union sympathies. Though they differed in their views on race—many had strong anti-black attitudes—these men wanted to keep the hated "rebels" from regaining power in the postwar South. The term scalawag was originally used as far back as the 1840s to describe a farm animal of little value; it later came to refer to a worthless person. For opponents of Reconstruction, scalawags were even lower on the scale of humanity than carpetbaggers, as they were viewed as traitors to the South. Made up 20 percent of the white electorate and wielded a considerable influence.

B) Southern Democrats Return to Power – see table on next page: Poll Taxes and Literacy Tests: Once whites regained control of the state legislatures they used “gerrymandering” of election districts to further reduce black voting strength and minimize the number of black elected officials. In the 1890s, these states began to amend their constitutions and to enact a series of laws intended to re-establish and entrench white political supremacy. Such disfranchising laws included poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfather clauses, vouchers of "good character," and disqualification for "crimes of moral turpitude." These laws were "color-blind" on their face, but were designed to exclude black citizens disproportionately by allowing white election officials to apply the procedures selectively. (US Department of Justice)

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Alabama Literacy Test, 1870s: Sample Questions 1. Where do presidential electors cast their ballots for president? 2. Name the rights a person has after he has been indicted by a grand jury. Grandfather clause, statutory or constitutional device enacted by seven Southern states between 1895 and 1910 to deny suffrage to American blacks; it provided that those who had enjoyed the right to vote prior to 1866 or 1867, or their lineal descendants, would be exempt from educational, property, or tax requirements for voting. Because the former slaves had not been granted the franchise until the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870, these clauses worked effectively to exclude blacks from the vote but assured the franchise to many impoverished and illiterate whites.

(3) Reconstruction: Life and Economy Post Civil War

As a result of the costs of rebuilding after the Civil War and the depression during the 1870s, many farmers saw falling production and prices for their crops, with cotton dropping nearly fifty percent between 1872 and 1877. Other crops formerly produced by slave labor (tobacco, sugar, and rice) also saw steep declines in their prices. In the heavily agricultural South, especially Black Belt and coastal plantation regions, falling crop prices meant that smaller farmers' credit dried up with their profits, while medium- and large-scale farmers struggled to turn a profit and pay their employees. Unable to meet their debts, many were forced to sell their land in assignee's sales or had it seized by banks, only to be bought by the same large landowners that had owned slaves before the war. One such man was Edmund Richardson, who bought up seized property along the Mississippi River during Reconstruction until he owned cotton “plantations' in 4 different Mississippi Delta counties, with a “headquarters' in Washington County; Richardson's land produced over 100,000 bales of cotton per year. To work these vast tracts, many former slave owners initially employed black squad labor for cash wages, a system which did not last long. In the words of the New York Times' correspondent in coastal Jacksonville, Florida, “When the war ended, the negroes were without homes. The old planters owned all the finest lands in the state; They made the best contracts they could with the freedmen to raise their cotton crops [but] the planters had no means, and could scarcely restock their estates, depleted after the war.' Pricey post-Civil War rebuilding, the Panic, and competition for workers in heavily black agricultural areas like the Mississippi Delta and “the heaviest cotton counties in the State [of Florida],' made squad-labor prohibitively expensive, forcing planters to find a “middle way between squad labor and autonomous black production.' Sharecropping seemed to be a good compromise for whites because it maintained the prewar social power structure by keeping blacks dependent on the white elite for land, tools, and credit while simultaneously maximizing crop output by giving workers a financial incentive to produce. The crop-lien system of agriculture was particularly widespread in the Deep South belt stretching from Louisiana to South Carolina, lasting from Reconstruction until the mechanization of agriculture and industrialization of the New Deal and World War II.

The promise: A) Forty Acres and a Mule, In the Field, Savannah, Georgia, January 16th, 1865 “I. From Charleston to, the abandoned rice fields along the rivers for thirty miles back from the sea, and the country bordering the St. Johns river, Florida, are reserved and set apart for the settlement of the negroes now made free by the acts of war and the proclamation of the President of the United States..II. At Beaufort, Hilton Head, Savannah, Fernandina, St. Augustine and Jacksonville, the blacks may remain in their chosen or accustomed vocations -- but on the islands, and in the settlements hereafter to be established, no white person whatever, unless military officers and soldiers detailed for duty, will be permitted to reside; and the sole and exclusive management of affairs will be left to the freed people themselves… III. Whenever three respectable negroes, heads of families, shall desire to settle on land, and shall have selected for that purpose an island or a locality clearly defined, within the limits above designated, the Inspector of Settlements and Plantations will himself, or by such subordinate officer as he may appoint, give them a license to settle such island or district, and afford them such assistance as he can to enable them to establish a peaceable agricultural settlement… “ The reality: B) Sharecropping Contract, Martin R. Delany No labor is to be performed by hand that can better be done by animal labor or machinery. All damage for injury or loss of property by carelessness is to be paid by fair and legal assessments. All Thanksgiving, Fast Days, "Holidays" and National Celebration Days are to be enjoyed by contractors without being regarded as a neglect of duty or violation of contract.

White Democrats Regain Control of Southern

Legislatures 1869 Virginia

1870 North Carolina

1871 Georgia 1873 Texas 1874 Alabama 1875 Mississippi 1877 Florida

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Good conduct and good behavior of the Freedmen toward the proprietor; good treatment of animals; and good care of tools, utensils, etc; and good and kind treatment of the Proprietor to the Freedmen, will be strictly required by the Authorities. No stores will be permitted on the place and nothing sold on account except the necessaries of life such as good substantial food and working clothes. Spirituous liquors will not be permitted. In all cases where an accusation is made against a person, the Proprietor or his Agent, [and] one of the Freedmen selected by themselves, and a third person chosen by the two shall be a council to investigate the accused…. Freedmen’s Bureau: During its years of operation, the Freedmen’s Bureau fed millions of people, built hospitals and provided medical aid, negotiated labor contracts for ex-slaves and settled labor disputes. It also helped former slaves legalize marriages and locate lost relatives, and assisted black veterans. The bureau also was instrumental in building thousands of schools for blacks, and helped to found such colleges. Additionally, the bureau tried, with little success, to promote land redistribution. However, most of the confiscated or abandoned Confederate land was eventually restored to the original owners, so there was little opportunity for black land ownership, which was seen as a means to success in society. In the summer of 1872, Congress, responding in part to pressure from white Southerners, dismantled the Freedmen’s Bureau.

(4) Reconstruction: Supreme Court Decisions 13th Amendment adopted in 1865, abolishes slavery or involuntary servitude except in punishment for a crime. 14th Amendment adopted in 1868, defines all people born in the United States as citizens, requires due process of law, and requires equal protection to all people. 15th Amendment, ratified in 1870, prevents the denial of a citizen’s vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Supreme Court invalidates the postwar Civil Rights Act in the Civil Rights Cases, 1883

It is assumed that the power of Congress [includes the] authority for declaring by law that all persons shall have equal accommodations and privileges in all inns, public conveyances, and places of public amusement; the argument being that the denial of such equal accommodations and privileges is in itself a subjection to a species of servitude within the meaning of the [Thirteenth]amendment.... Can the act of a mere individual, the owner of the train, the public conveyance, or place of amusement, refusing the accommodation, be justly regarded as imposing any badge of slavery.... We are forced to the conclusion that such an act if refusal has nothing to do with slavery or involuntary servitude. Mere discriminations on account of race [are] not regarded as badges of slavery. Plessy v. Ferguson In 1890 a new Louisiana law required railroads to provide “equal but separate accommodations for the white, and colored, races.” Outraged, the black community in New Orleans decided to test the rule. On June 7, 1892, Homer Plessy agreed to be arrested for refusing to move from a seat reserved for whites. From this case comes the doctrine “separate by equal.” “We consider the underlying fallacy of the plaintiff's argument to consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority....The argument also assumes that social prejudices may be overcome by legislation, and that equal rights cannot be secured to the Negro except by an enforced commingling of the two races.... Justice John Harlan's dissent in Plessy, 1896 The white race deems itself to be the dominant race in this country....But in view of the Constitution...there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no caste here. Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respects of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law. Other major ‘Redemption’ Cases in Response to Reconstruction United States v. Cruikshank: An 1876 Supreme Court case that severely restricted Congress’s ability to enforce the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871. The Court ruled that only states, not the U.S. government, had the right to prosecute Klansmen under the law. Without the threat of federal prosecution, the Ku Klux Klan and other racist whites had free reign to terrorize blacks throughout the South. Slaughterhouse Cases: A series of Supreme Court cases (involving a New Orleans slaughterhouse) that effectively rendered the Fourteenth Amendment useless. The justices ruled that the amendment protected citizens from rights infringements only on a federal level, not on a state level. This decision allowed state legislatures to suspend blacks’ legal and civil rights as outlined in the Constitution.

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Examples of Jim Crow Laws Named for a character in minstrel shows, by the 1890s the expression “Jim Crow” was used to describe laws and customs aimed at segregating African Americans and others. These laws were intended to restrict social contact between whites and other groups and to limit the freedom and opportunity of people of color. Tennessee, 1891: “All railroads carrying passengers in the state (other than street railroads) shall provide equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored races, by providing two or more passenger cars for each passenger train, or by dividing the cars by a partition, so as to secure separate accommodations.” Arkansas, 1903: “It shall be unlawful for any white prisoner to be handcuffed or otherwise chained or tied to a negro prisoner.” Nebraska, 1911: “Marriages are void when one party is a white person and the other is possessed of one-eighth or more negro, Japanese, or Chinese blood.” Oklahoma, 1915: “The Corporate Commission is hereby vested with power to require telephone companies in the State of Oklahoma to maintain separate booths for white and colored patrons when there is a demand for such separate booths.” Mississippi, 1920: “Any person...presenting for public acceptance or general information, arguments or suggestions in favor of social equality or of intermarriage between whites and negroes, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and subject to a fine not exceeding five hundred dollars or imprisonment not exceeding six months or both fine and imprisonment in the discretion of the court.” Maryland, 1904: Required separate railroad passenger cars for “white and colored persons” 1924: “Any white woman who shall suffer or permit herself to be got with child by a negro or mulatto...shall be sentenced to the penitentiary for not less than eighteen months.” Atlanta, Georgia, 1926: “No colored barber shall serve as a barber to white women or girls.” Missouri, 1929: “Separate free schools shall be established for the education of children of African descent; and it shall be unlawful for any colored child to attend any white school, or any white child to attend a colored school.” Alabama, 1930: “It shall be unlawful for a negro and white person to play together or in company with each other in any game of cards or dice, dominoes or checkers.” Pennsylvania, 1935: banned discrimination in public places (previously did not require equal accommodations) (5) Images of Reconstruction 1870 poster celebrating the passage of the 15th amendment

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An October 24th, 1874 Harper's Magazine editorial cartoon by Thomas Nast denouncing KKK and White League murders of African Americans.  

Franchise (voting)

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James E. Taylor “The Freedmen’s Union Industrial School, Richmond, VA” 1866

”I Am the Door” – Songs of the Jubilee Singers from Fisk University, 1884 (concert tour of African American spirituals / raise funds for the African American university. More images of Reconstruction: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aaohtml/exhibit/aopart5.html

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(1) Complete the chart: List information from the text and images: (complete, specific, clear – 50 pts)

Topic Harmed emancipation of / justice for African Americans (up to 5 pts each section)

Supported emancipation of / justice for African Americans (up to 5 pts each section)

Terror campaign of the KKK

Elections and Voting

Life and Economy post Civil War

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Supreme Court Decisions

Images

(2) Historiography: Select two (2) quotes. Write one paragraph (7 or more sentences) in respone to each quote by agreeing or disagreeing with the quote. Include specific evidence from the text / images to support your position. (You should have at least 2 sentences summarizing the quote. Your position (thesis) – one sentence. Three sentences with evidence. A concluding sentence.) (50 points) Assessment Paragraph Clear and complete

understanding of the quote (5 pts)

Clear and complete position in response to the quote (5 pts)

3 piece of evidence to support your position (10 pts)

Concluding sentence (5 pts)

#____________

#_____________

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(A) Historian Eric Foner: Reconstruction was "a noble if flawed experiment, the first attempt to introduce a genuine inter-racial democracy in the United States." Reconstruction, he argues, "can only be judged a failure" as an effort to secure "blacks' rights as citizens and free laborers." But it "closed off even more oppressive alternatives. . . . The post-Reconstruction labor system embodied neither a return to the closely supervised gang labor of antebellum days, nor the complete dispossession and immobilization of the black labor force and coercive apprenticeship systems envisioned by white Southerners in 1865 and 1866. Nor were blacks, as in twentieth-century South Africa, barred from citizenship, herded into labor reserves, or prohibited by law from moving from one part of the country to another. . . .The doors of economic opportunity that had opened could never be completely closed." (2) W. E. B. DuBois wrote in Black Reconstruction in America (1935): “The slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again toward slavery.” Nevertheless, to DuBois, Reconstruction was an effort by freed African Americans and their white allies to create a more democratic society in the South. It was responsible for many valuable social innovations (e.g. universities). (3) Donald R. Shaffer maintained that the gains during Reconstruction for African Americans were not entirely extinguished. The legalization of African-American marriage and family and the independence of black churches from white denominations were a source of strength during the Jim Crow era. Reconstruction was never forgotten among the black community and remained as a source of inspiration. The system of share cropping allowed blacks a considerable amount of freedom over slavery. (4) “John Hope Franklin and Kenneth Stampp argued Reconstruction was a genuine, if flawed, effort to solve the problem of race in the South. Congressional Radicals were not saints, but they were genuinely concerned with protecting the rights of former slaves. Reconstruction had brought more important, if temporary, progress to the South and had created no more corruption there than governments were creating in the North at the same time. What was tragic about Reconstruction was not what it did to Southern whites but what it failed to do for Southern blacks. It was, in the end, too weak and too short-lived to guarantee African Americans genuine equality.”