DK - The American Civil War

The expansion of rights and freedoms was

limited by the resistance of Southern

whites and by growing Northern apathy.

With the end of Reconstruction, many

hard-fought gains were lost.

LOSING HARD-WON RIGHTS

In the late 1880s, Southern states began

introducing Jim Crow laws, which challenged

the Fourteenth Amendment. These laws

legalized segregation between whites and

blacks in areas such as public transportation,

waiting rooms, theaters, schools, hospitals,

and other public institutions. Facilities for

blacks were usually of inferior quality. In

many states, marriage between whites and

African-Americans was banned.

EDUCATIONAL GAINS

After the war, black colleges (Howard University,

Fisk University, and Hampton University) were

established with the aim of training teachers.

By 1869, in the 3,000 Freedmen’s schools, more

than half the teachers were black. However, in

the next decade, few children received any

formal education. Literacy among African-

Americans increased in the postwar period

from one in ten in 1865 to one in two by 1900.

should mean in regard to former slaves.

On the other hand, blacks saw clearly

that, along with ownership of land as

the basis for economic independence,

freedom should include citizenship and

the right to vote. The Reconstruction

Amendments (Thirteenth, Fourteenth,

and Fifteenth) and civil rights legislation

effected radical change. Slavery had

denied African-Americans their

humanity, treating them as a form of

property. The Fourteenth and Fifteenth

Amendments went far beyond

mere emancipation. They

defined freedmen as

AFTER

citizens, guaranteed

“equal protection of the

law,” and outlawed

voting discrimination

based on color. In

addition, state and

local laws acknowledged

that blacks must be able to

exercise basic rights, such as

property ownership and use of the

courts, though not without limitations.

Many Southern blacks became

politically active on behalf of the

Republican Party. Notable among them

were former Union soldiers, prominent

ministers, and teachers. They helped

maintain Republican Party dominance

in the South during the early

Reconstruction period, and many were

elected to public office, including, in

1870, Hiram Rhodes Revels from

Mississippi, the first black member of

the Senate, and Joseph Rainey of South

Carolina, the first black member of

the House of Representatives.

bondage. Churches hosted local
events, offered help writing
letters and reading
newspapers, and nurtured
political participation.
Education mattered
greatly to freedmen.
Most states had
banned slave
education, and
literacy rates were
low. With help
from the Federal
government and
Northern missionaries,
black communities
established schools that attracted
people of all ages. In time,
Reconstruction schools multiplied
along with the number of influential
black teachers.

African-American citizenship
Northerners might agree that slavery
should end, but they debated sharply
among themselves what that freedom

THE REALITY OF BLACK FREEDOM

A Southern sharecropper
A sharecropper surveys a field of cotton, the most
common crop to be grown under the sharecropping
system. When cotton prices dropped, sharecroppers’
incomes were meager.

“The first colored senator and representatives”

In 1870, Republican Hiram Rhodes Revels (far left)

was elected a senator for the state of

Mississippi. He is shown here with

some of the first black members of

the House of Representatives.