Racial Aspects Of The Civil War

The Opelousas Massacre was a horrifying event that occurred on September 28, 1868, in Landry Parish, Louisiana. The riot was sparked by conflict between black freedmen and whites over the political control of the state of Louisiana. This resulted in a massive killing of blacks as whites had the overwhelming advantage in numbers and weapons. What’s most interesting about this case is the mystery surrounding the accounts of deaths. No one can approximately confirm how many people were killed in this massacre. Some sources identify as few as 30 people killed. Other sources estimate killings to over 300 people. The Opelousas Massacre was one of the deadliest riots to occur against African Americans during the era of Reconstruction.

Let’s examine the reality of violence during the Reconstruction Era. In the document, “Southern Horrors- Lynch Laws in All its Phases, by Ida B. Wells-Barnett we see countless examples of the continued violence in the south against African-Americans. The slogan “This is white man’s country and the

After the Memphis and New Orleans Riots of 1866 people's perspectives about radical reconstruction changed. The Memphis riots occured because of political, social, and racial strains following the Civil War. After a falling-out with black soldiers and white policemen, crowds of white civilians and policeman raided black neighborhoods and attacked and killed black men, women, and children. This Memphis Riot also brought attention to the New Orleans Riot and brought awareness that Radical Republicans were needed to bring upon peace and protect freedmen in the South as well as protect their rights. This opened people's eyes that Radical Reconstruction was to keep the South in check and prevent chaotic riots and violence due to white southerners disagreement of the new freedmen's and blacks

During the Reconstruction era, former slaves received much violence from whites. About 5,000 blacks were murdered by whites from 1865-1866. White mobs killed 34 blacks in New Orleans and 46 blacks in Memphis during race riots in 1866. Blacks were also subjected to the violence of the Ku Klux Klan, a secret white organization. That was founded in 1865 or 1866 in Tennessee. The members of the Ku Klux Klan wore white hoods and robes and put white sheets over their horses. Blacks and white sympathizers were beaten and murdered by the Klan. The Klan did whatever it could to prevent blacks from exercising their rights. By terrorizing blacks, they kept them from voting. These attacks couldn’t even be stopped by the U.S. Army troops.

The Memphis riots, or more properly massacre, represented the peak of tension between white Southerners and blacks immediately following the

Eventually, the occurrence of the Orangeburg Massacre led to the racial integration of Orangeburg and many other parts of South Carolina. If the Orangeburg Massacre had not occurred, South Carolina might not have become the racially equal society it is today. However, not everybody agreed with the change that was being brought as a result of the event. Many caucasians at the time attempted to cover the incident up, and to blame whatever could not be hidden on the protesters. Nevertheless, civil rights protesters were not going to let the killing of their fellow pupils be in vain. The students of Orangeburg demanded the punishment of highway patrolmen and other law enforcers on scene the night of the massacre. “They wished to see the officers punished to the fullest extent of the law so that justice could be served to the families of the three young men who were killed” (Pulaski 10). But, as an attempt to hide the massacre, many white-owned newspaper companies either simply refused to report the event, or blamed the massacre on the protesters that participated that night (3 Negroes 1). “A skirmish line of highway patrolmen and city police returned the fire of demonstrating college students last night” (3 Negroes 1). After a scant two weeks, no white-owned newspaper business covered the event at all.

We decided to focus on the south with the Civil War because we knew it was a big event in history that changed many lifes. We wanted to focus on the South because they lost the Civil War so not many people knew something about them. At first our topic was women in the South, but we weren’t really finding anything on that. Nobody seemed to to care enough to write. Since we already started researching Civil War in the south (with women), why don’t we do the Civil War in the south? As we continued our research, we found more on the Civil War in the south and some on why the south lost the civil war.

The Tulsa Race Riot is an event that is quite possibly the most unknown and misconstrued piece of history in the United States of America. When and if it is discussed, it’s taken as a single event that happened in Tulsa and was deadly and very destructive. The many theories of what occurred and how it came to the extreme mob like violence taken on Tulsa’s own civilians. The evidence found suggest there were alternative motives in Tulsa for acquiring land that the black civilians held.

The Tulsa Riot of 1921 was a tragic racial riot that resulted in the periodic destruction of Greenwood, a neighborhood of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Nicknamed “Little Africa”, Greenwood was described as a vibrant community, and was built up by African Americans. This community, however, was completely destroyed by a massive mob of white men, whose anger stemmed from rape allegations of an African American man. Before and after the Tulsa Riot occurred, African Americans of the Greenwood community faced social issues due to the prevalence of racism among white men across the nation.

The American Civil War was the deadliest warfare in American history soil; leaving approximately 620 thousand dead and over 300 thousand wounded. One would ask, who or what was the massive roles that played? During the nineteenth century, as the newborn nation, United States used racial identity, such as slaves or free blacks, and firearms were involved in the Civil War. I believe through this research paper, my learning from my K-12 schooling has not change significantly.

The tensions of the Civil War are very much still alive in the Southern United States one hundred and fifty years after the Confederacy surrendered to Union forces to end the war. While the tensions may have mitigated away from full-fledged war between North and South, there still remain tensions along racial and cultural lines well beyond the war. In Tony Horwitz’s Confederates in the Attic these long standing tensions left over from the war are delved into by Horwitz as he makes his way across the south to see how the old Confederacy is viewed in the modern world of the United States. What Horwitz found was a dualistic society differing views on the Confederacy and the events of the Civil War. Dualities left from the war in aspects such as racial tensions, the meaning of the Confederate flag even between North and South entirely. Those living in the South can be seen holding a resonating connection to the Civil War. It becomes clear in Confederates in the Attic the Civil War not only became the catalyst of such dualities in Southern society, but still further shape and perpetuate these dualities long after the Civil Wars conclusion.

The theme of race and reunion had become a competition for memories with vastly different aspirations between the north and the south. Striving for a reunion, a majority of American white communities close obscure the civil war racial narrative would only fade. In race and reunion: The Civil War in American memory, by David Blight, represents how Americans chose to remember the Civil War conflict, from the beginning of the turning point of the war. The two major themes race and reunion, demonstrate how white Americans adjusted and altered the causes and outcomes of the Civil War to reflect their particular ideas regarding this catastrophic conflict between Northerners and Southerners era. Blight, addresses how these differences in cultures collided in the visions that they saw America becoming when reunited as a union after the Civil War, reconciliationists, White supremacy and emancipationist. Blight does an excellent job of showing the arguments between all three versions of the Civil War. As the emancipationist image kept a firm hold amongst ex-slaves, it lost much of its white support and political power. Reconciliation became more about healing, allowing racial injustice of the supremacist movement to seep into the landscape of national healing. why do Union veterans allow the real cause of the war, slavery, to disappear from the memory of the war – Blight strives to answer. Through a culture of remembrance, veterans looked back at their experience with a sort of

On 1 May 1866 in the city of Memphis, Tennessee, an altercation between black Union soldiers and Memphis police officers started a chain reaction that eventually brought about what has come to be known as the Memphis Riots of 1866. The group of amicably intoxicated soldiers reacted negatively when told by a small group of officers to break up their party, and although no one was seriously injured, the situation quickly escalated to the point where shots were fired on both sides (Carden 2). This incident, however, was not the cause of the Memphis Riots. Instead, I will argue that the altercation merely served as the spark to set a fire to a whole mess of kindling made of economic, political, and social twigs and branches, which was already in place long before the actual events of the Memphis Riots.

America is a country that allows people freedom and equality. In the Declaration of Independence, it states that “all men are created equal” and most people agreed with that. However, there were a few people who thought that slaves were not part of the equality factor. Those people, who were mostly slave owners, saw the African Americans as property and did not see them as equals. Since there was such a big difference in views, it created many tensions between the people. Some people wanted to get rid of slavery and give them freedom and equality, some wanted to get rid of slavery but not make slaves equal to other people, and others wanted to keep slavery as it is. Mostly, there was a disagreement between the South and the North and since there is a difference in other factors such as political and economic, these things began to create tensions and drive them farther apart. During 1783-1859, there were numerous cultural, political, and religious tensions and differences between the United States North and South which led to the unforgettable American Civil War. For this essay, I will be using six sources to support my thesis.

As the country was embroiled in an unremitting civil war, New York City was afflicted by riots that would become the city’s most devastating instance of racially motivated violence. Between July 13th and July 16th, 1863, ten days after 46,000 Americans were slain at Gettysburg, riots broke out over a new law passed by Congress. This law, the Enrollment Act, was established to bring new recruits into the Union Army that was being diminished by the increasing amount of high-casualty battles. What initially began as a protest against the draft and the commutation fee that allowed wealthier citizens to buy their way out of the draft, soon turned into a race-riot, led primarily by Irish-American immigrants against New York’s African-American community. The riots led to a mass exodus of New York’s African-American population and resulted in the deaths of 119 men, many of whom were African-American, who were lynched and beaten by the white mobs. Behind the scenes of violence and disorder was Tammany Hall, the Democratic Party political machine that controlled City Hall from 1854 to 1932. This corrupt and venal organization, whose crimes normally consisted of doling out city contracts to supporters and precipitating Irish immigrants’ entrance to the voter rolls, now included murder. Rather than seek to have the draft declared unconstitutional, as many of the Irish working-class rioters wanted, Tammany inflamed already burgeoning racial tensions. Tammany did this by