The Late Convention Of Colored Men Essay

The essay that I am presenting today is “Strivings of the Negro People” by W.E.B Dubois. This essay was written in as an article in the Atlantic Monthly in 1987, but before I get to essay, I would like to give some background information about Mr. Dubois. Both scholar and activist, W.E.B. Du Bois was born on February 23, 1868, in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. He studied at Harvard University and, in 1895, became the first African American to earn a doctorate from Harvard. He wrote extensively and was the best known spokesperson for African American rights during the first half of the 20th century. Du Bois co-founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1909. He died in

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.

Opelousas, Louisianas’ Black Codes passed in 1865 stated that, no negro could come into town, live, rent, or use land in town, go to any public meeting in town without a pass from a government official or white boss, they also couldn’t carry a gun unless in the military (Doc. B) a white person could do these things by their own choice. Former slave Henry Adams said to the U.S. Senate in 1880 that, he once asked the madam “‘ where was the boss?”’ She said, “‘You should say ‘master’ You are not free... and you shall call every white lady ‘missus’ and every white man ‘master’.’” (Doc. C.), many would say African Americans weren’t free because whites didn’t think they

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.

As a result of the North’s victory in the civil war and the reconstruction period that followed, African-Americans were seemingly on the verge of being able to enjoy the freedom of no longer being slaves. During the reconstruction era, important pieces of legislature were written in order to protect the rights of the newly freed men. Those pieces of legislature were essentially trying to somehow transform former slave into free productive members of society. However, a number of disgruntled southerners took it as their duty to prevent African-American from being free of their former masters. They saw the northerners demand as an infringement of the South traditional values. Although the

leader. Freedom became a symbol for the nation, but not everyone in the nation was “free”. In the 1760s, the American Revolution changed the views of many living in the States. With much talk of freedom, people began to question the concept of slavery. As the States kept growing, the North and South started to gain different views of slavery. Because the North was industrialized and believed in factories while the South had huge cotton plantations that needed many workers, slavery was controversial. But one-by-one, Northern states began to outlaw slavery. Black slaves became free men, but because of the contrasting views, were often not treated as such. The question remains: how free were free Blacks in the North? Free Blacks in the North were not truly free and very restricted because of political, social, and economical limits.

Black Codes were enacted in 1865 and 1866 by new southern state governments. Similar to the Slave Codes that existed before the Civil War, these Black Codes sought to regulate past slaves lives such as prohibiting freed slaves to serve on juries or to testify against a white person in court. Although the Black Codes granted African Americans to possess and sell property and legalized black marriages, interracial marriage between white and black Americans was outlawed. Unfortunately, some states even went further to control the lives of African Americans by limiting their economic freedoms such as, preventing any African Americans from purchasing or renting farmland in the state of Mississippi. As a result of decreeing the Black Codes, a division

Regardless of the many disparagements, the Freedmen's Bureau helped African-Americans achieve the rights that they were deprived of during slavery. The Freedmen's Bureau aided the African-American group of people in establishing schools and churches. Underneath slavery, African-Americans had been deprived of the right to education and religion. The Freemen's Bureau kept an eye on the civil authorities just in cases it involved African-Americans, moreover, the Freedmen's Bureau directed its own court of law during the time it was illegal for a black to testify in courts in the South. The labor structure of the South had to be completely restructured after the war, with that the ex-slave owners tried to fool its former slaves into signing contracts with the same terms as the slavery system. The Freedmen's Bureau represented the African-Americans in convey unbiased contracts for labor and property. Liberty presented African-Americans the opportunities to start a family, moreover, the Freedmen's Bureau aide African-Americans in locating their lost relatives and arbitrated local

The newly passed laws became known as “Black Codes” and socially, they directly impacted the lives of all freedmen and indirectly benefited the white race. These laws restricted the rights of free African-American men and women (Doc A). In Opelousas, Louisiana, some of these restrictions were the denied right to keep or own a house in the town, the denied right to enter the town without special permission, the denied right to hold public meetings, the denied right to carry firearms or any kind of weapon, and a requirement that every negro must be in service of some white person (Doc A). The elite members in the South did everything they could to prevent blacks from gaining civic power, and the reasoning for supporting these codes ranged from fearing black political influence to the comfort of knowing farmers still had a stable and reliable work force. Even in the post civil war North, people believed blacks were unfit to be government officials (Doc E). Pro-freedman presses ran racist letters arguing blacks were not fit for the proper exercise of political duties, and their generation needed a period of probation and instruction in order to learn the ways in which society ran (Doc E). Many northerners felt blacks were incompetent to hold important jobs; therefore, the government was in no way aiding the reconstruction efforts to provide equality to all people in America.

During the Reconstruction period of 1865–1877, federal laws provided civil rights protection in the U.S. South for freedmen, the African Americans who had formerly been slaves. During Reconstruction, the government implemented the 14th amendment along with the Freedmen's Bureau to ensure that Freedman in the south were protected. Due to the measures being taken during this time period, there were different reactions with each so called class of individuals. The black southerners typically favored Reconstruction as it gave them a great increase in rights and equality, along with white southerners who disapproved secession in the first place. Conversely, there was a great majority of white southerners who had ill feelings towards Reconstruction

The state of Mississippi, as well as many other southern states, created what was known as The Black Codes. The Black Codes of Mississippi were essentially put in place to keep African-American’s living in Mississippi from being able to live their lives as white men and women could during the time of Reconstruction. Different codes were enforced in different states, but they were all based around the same idea that African-American’s should have to follow a different set of rules and regulations than whites due to the simple fact that they were black. One of these codes even violated the Second Amendment. In section one under the Penal Laws of Mississippi category it is clearly stated that no freedman, unless employed by the United States military or properly licensed by a board

The South still had a disliking for blacks and the South began to form Black Codes. Black codes were restrictions put on blacks in the South. “Black codes denied blacks the right to vote, the right to own guns, the right to serve on juries, and some even forced them to work on plantations if they did not have a job” (Radical Reconstruction. youtube.com). Black codes unfairly restricted the rights of African Americans and they were morally wrong. There was much variation of the Black Codes depending on which state of the South. Some states did not even allow blacks to own property. “The Black Codes partially reverted the South into slavery” (Radical Reconstruction. youtube.com). Once the government realized what was happening they decided that reconstruction had to be enforced. “Congress sent the military creating radical regimes throughout sectionalist states” (Sparknotes.com). At this time in history the south was divided into five military districts and there was a United States general put in place for each. There were many disobedient white Southerners

During reconstruction the United States was divided on social issues, presidential campaigns were won and loss on these issues during this period. The struggle for development of African Americans and how they initiated change in political, economic, educational, and social conditions to shape their future and that of the United States. (Dixon, 2000) The South’s attempts to recover from the Civil war included determining what to do with newly freed slaves and finding labor to replace them. The task of elevating the Negro from slave to citizen was the most enormous one which had ever confronted the country. Local governments implemented mechanisms of discrimination to combat citizenship

The Black Codes was masked slavery. Other than some new, small leniencies, Mississippi succeeded in making laws that that still controlled African Americans. These Sections were created for the South to bend the rules by exploiting children. These laws were aimed at minors under the age of 18 that were orphans or whose parents were unable to financially provide for them. At this point, the child would be placed back in the “care” of their former master or mistress. These codes stated that the best interest of the minor was to be protected, that they were to be fed, clothed, treated humanely; taught to read if under the age of fifteen and to receive medical attention when sick. In return, the minor, or apprentice would be bounded by indenture until the age of eighteen for a female and twenty one for a male. It was also acceptable for the former owner to chastise under what was allowed for punishment by the common law. If the child were to escape, it was permitted to place the child in jail if refused to return. That only discharge from a master/mistress would be possible if the courts believed the apprentice had a good cause to quit. Those are just few examples to begin with. These codes essentially worked to separate the races in all aspects of life from children to adults, such as marriage, which would result in life in prison if wedded to a white person. They also were not allowed to own any type of weapon unless they served in the United States military, and were to be fined and possibly imprisoned to even drinking liquor to a level of intoxication. Over all, these are just a few of the examples that were laws to “freed” men to be kept

During this time in a movement known as the Great Migration, thousands of African-Americans also known as Negros left their homes in the South and moved North toward the beach line of big cities in search of employment and a new beginning. As Locke stated, “the wash and rush of this human tide on the beach line of Northern city centers is to be explained primarily in terms of a new vision of opportunity, of social and economic freedom, of a spirit to seize, even in the face of an extortionate and heavy toll, a chance for the improvement of conditions. With each successive wave of it, the movement of the Negro becomes more and more a mass movement toward the larger