African American Oppression Following The Civil War

Despite the black codes had provided rights such as the marriage legalization and the ownership of property, they violated the free labor principle and denied the African-Americans the right to vote, and sue any white man. Foner (2014) found “In response to planter’s demands that freed people be required to work on the plantations, the Black Codes declared that those who failed to sign yearly labor contracts could be arrested and hired out to white landowners” (p. 570) . In fact, it was a totally failure of what freedom was supposed to be.

Following the Civil War, America was in shambles. There were many groups with strong, conflicting ideas of how things should be. However, most groups had one idea in common: reducing the rights of African Americans as much as possible. Freed slaves had very little freedom under the law, were treated like a lesser species by those around them, and faced dangerous environments everywhere they went. Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation may have legally freed slaves, but African Americans were barely more than paid slaves.

After the Civil War, the southern whites were extremely resentful and bitter. In 1865 the southern states began issuing “black codes,” which were laws made subsequent to the Civil War that had the effect of limiting the civil rights and civil liberties of blacks. This term tends to refer to the legislation passed by southern states to control the labor, migration, and other activities of newly freed slaves. When the slaves were freed, they still had

The Union Victory in the Civil War in 1865 granted freedom to approximately 4 million slaves, however, the process of rebuilding the South during the Reconstruction period 1865-1877 brought a lot of challenges. In 1865 and 1866 under the supervision of President Andrew Johnson, new Southern state legislatives passed the “black codes” to control the labor and behavior of former slaves and other African Americans. During the Radical Reconstruction in 1869, new enfranchised blacks had a voice in the government for the first time in

According to the thirteenth amendment, “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” The purpose of the thirteenth amendment was to end slavery or any form of involuntary servitude everywhere among the United States. There was new hope for African Americans throughout the country but unfortunately their freedom had a limit and coincidentally, President Lincoln was assassinated shortly after. Jim Crow laws were established among the states and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the southern states of the United States up until 1965. This is how white southerners

With the Union victory in the Civil War in 1865, millions of slaves were given their freedom. Although these millions of slaves are now free, the rebuilding on the South during the Reconstruction introduced many obstacles. These obstacles include sharecropping, tenant farming, the “black codes”, and not to forget the lack of education and rights African Americans had at the time. Sharecropping is consisted of a slave renting land from a white man and having to give up a portion of their crops at the end of each year. The black codes were basically laws against what type of labor African Americans can be given. In the state of South Carolina, blacks were only able to work as farmers or servants; the same jobs these free people worked as slaves. After decades of slavery, blacks were still under the control of the white people due to lack of education and rights.

During World War II, around one million black men served in the army. They were in different units to the white men. Riots and fights occurred when black men from northern America had to face the discrimination in the south during training. This lessoned peoples opinion of them, in a prejudice way. They were never allowed to join the Marines or the Air Corps, but this changed for the first time during the war due to the military needs. After the war, blacks began to challenge their status as second-class citizens. After their country fighting Nazi Germany, who killed six million Jews, and a fascist Italy, the people of America began to question the racism and

In 1863 the Emancipation Proclamation declares “that all persons held as slaves with the confederate states are, and henceforward shall be free”. It was not until 1865 when the Civil War ended and the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery. As a replacement of slavery, whites created Whites in the southern states enacted the Black Codes. Black Codes were thought to uphold a social caste system, reflecting the racial hierarchy of slavery. Slavery was abolished, however it still serves as a form of punishment for those found guilty of a crime. In the Thirteenth Amendment (1865) lies a description of the policy: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to the jurisdiction.” A major contributor to blacks becoming criminalized and, in turn, enslaved again were laws that penalized the homeless and unemployed. When black people traveled without proper documents that verified their employment or a home address, they would often be charged with trespassing (Browne-Marshall 2007). As newly freed people, most had no income to pay the consequential fines, thus, they would become prisoners and their enslavement would be legally justified.

Issued by Abraham Lincoln, the Emancipation Proclamation set all slaves, under Confederate control, free, and armed black troops for the Civil War. A year later, beginning in September of 1864, Maryland, Tennessee, Missouri, and Louisiana abolished slavery. Shortly after, approved by Congress in February of 1865 and ratified in December, the Thirteenth Amendment was official. This amendment abolished slavery throughout the entire Union, which finally freed Kentucky and Delaware slaves. The war started as a fight to preserve the Union, but the new amendment went to show that the war had shifted to a fight to end slavery. The Thirteenth Amendment resulted in the abolition of slavery permanently. Although this freedom did not mean equality. Northern African Americans had been battling for their civil rights before and after the war. They were petitioning and campaigning at the state level, and created the National Convention of Colored Men and the National Rights League at the national level. None of these had as big of an impact as when the Radical republicans in Congress got involved to help overturn the inequalities.

It intended to help former slaves after the Civil War, by providing food, medical care, clothing and education for refugees and freedmen. Many northern abolitionists risked their lives to help the southern freedmen receiving the name of carpetbaggers. It was given to them by white southern Democrats as northerners who moved to the South after the civil war. Although the Freedmen’s Bureau was seen as a good idea for the Northern, the Southern saw it differently, they said that they had “plenty to eat and nothing to do.” On December 1865, the 13th amendment was passed in where slavery was abolished and involuntary service. Johnson's plan quickly carried out and as a result, many Confederates were elected in the South and the commencing black codes. Black codes were discriminatory laws passed throughout the South to give whites power over blacks; this codes restricted freed Slaves prohibiting, for example, traveling without permits and marrying whites. The purposes of this codes were to guarantee a stable labor supply for emancipated blacks and to force many blacks to become sharecroppers. Because of this codes, the freed slaves didn't feel like they were free. When asked how it felt to be free to a slave the answer was, "I don’t know," when he say what he thinks he said, "I’ll be free when I can do anything a white man can do." When formal slaves became freed slaves, they said: "Freedom burned in the heart long before freedom was

Former slaves were not allowed any weapons or access to the town, among other things. The codes stretched the law enough so that African-Americans were even forced to be “in the service of some white person or former owner”, and could not do many things without their express permission. (Document B) These laws were put into place by white men, dependent on the African-American’s continued labor for their farms and plantations to thrive. As the slave trade had greatly enhanced the economy of the South, white landowners were not eager to give up the majority of their workforce. Although legally, former slaves were considered free, the black codes forced them to stay in place and obey unfair laws. Without the word slavery ever mentioned, the black codes represented much of the South’s attitude towards African-Americans, destroying their personal rights as

From Johnson's perspective, reconstruction was complete by 1865 but in reality, freed slaves still had no rights and Johnson tried to detain any forward moving actions of reconstruction. The republican congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 which granted emancipated African Americans the right to sue, serve on juries, and other legal rights. Congress also passed the 13th amendment, abolishing slavery, and the 14th amendment, recognizing freed slaves as citizens (Document B). Opelousas, Louisiana responded to the amendments with the “Black Codes;” no African American enter the limits of the town unless a permit is cleared, no African American will rent or own a house or weapon in town, and no public meetings between African Americans are permitted, and all African Americans must be employed by a “white person” (Document C). Other legal issues pertained to the Ku Klux Klan or KKK. The members of this society pursued the idea that African Americans are meant to be enslaved and put in place to function properly in American society. At one point, the KKK’s violence become so prominent that military troops were ordered to protect freedmen. The political portion of reconstruction placed important laws but lacked in tremendously improving the political situation of African

The whole research paper is over, “Have African Americans made significant progress since the end of the Civil War in 1865? Examine the challenges that African Americans faced during the Reconstruction Era through to the modern Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Look at the impact that legislation has had from the "Civil War Amendments" to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the rise of Jim Crow and the KKK, and the events and figures that helped shape the African American experience during that time span?”

Meanwhile, the recently freedmen had been free (if they were in a state in rebellion) but still suffer with abuse. Even when the 13th Amendment ratified, southerners established black codes that violate and opposed the Amendment. Freedmen attempted to obtain representation, but they lacked education. “Freedmen increasingly sought representation that was accountable to them, African Americans or White allies independent of the statewide power structure.” Even when freedmen existed and made up to 40% of the population and only dominated in South Carolina and Louisiana. This meant in the rest of the South, republicans aimed to appease the majority, which were white people and used the Union League of America to control the black vote. Dissident southerners created terrorist societies like the Ku Klux Klan.” Whites perceived a frightening loss of racial control, which encouraged the wave of extralegal violence throughout the period.” The Force Acts were made to protect them, but the damage was

The seventh section of these black codes allowed for the return of freed blacks to their employers if they were to quit “the service of his or her employer before the expiration of his or her term of service without good cause.” What a blacks’ term of service and what defined just cause for ending that term of service, would likely be left up to the employer, creating a system which virtually defined slavery itself. Since blacks were required to be employed, this meant that they could be held in slave-like conditions to white employers.