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diff --git a/smith/02_color_line b/smith/02_color_line new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ac84991 --- /dev/null +++ b/smith/02_color_line @@ -0,0 +1,205 @@ +# Post-civil war and Reconstruction (1865-1877) + +The course starts in 1877, after Reconstruction of the South after the +Civil War. +- How did reconstruction and happen and "what challenges did the federal +government face?" +- How did white and black southerners respond? +- What factors led to the end of Reconstruction in 1877? +- Why did white southerners create segregation laws after + Reconstruction? + +W.E.B. DuBois + - black scholar, author, thinker, and civil rights activist + - Wrote "The Souls of Black Folk" (1903) + - "The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color + line." + - Race and segregation are the defining issues in America + - Civil ideal + - Racial ideal (?) + - White supremacy won at the time + - Whites feared losing economic, political, social power to + black Americans. + - Rooted in slavery and a fear of black people competing. + - Segregation failed to maintain a social order (why?) + +White southerners viewed Civil War loss as a temporary setback in +challenging blacks' freedoms. + - Slave-owners refused to free their slaves + - Whites resisted reconstruction + +Government attempted to make new freed men self-reliant as white +southerners fought back against union occupation of the south and +Reconstruction. About two questions: + - Who deserves citizenship and freedoms? + - What rights should all Americans enjoy? + +Southern land value and resources crashed, while northern soldiers +confiscated this value. +The end of slavery caused a labor crisis---how would freedmen be +employed? + - "Freedmen's Bureau" (1865-1870) helped connect family members and + developed black freedmen's schools and work. + - Government authorized giving/renting confiscated land to + freedmen, but many officials corrupt. + - So whites used contracts with freedmen to maintain their own + power. + - Southern whites pressured Congress into shuttering Freedmen's + Bureau + - And continuing under-resourced schooling for blacks. + +Amendments ratified by all states (including by Southern states, which +were required to ratify on condition of admission into the union): +13th Amendment (1865) + - Abolished slavery +14th Amendment (1868) + - Guaranteed citizenship to natural US citizens, except Natives + - States couldn't deny equal protection of laws. +15th Amendment (1870) + - Guaranteed all men voting rights + - Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were suffragists + who wanted women voting rights, and supported abolition but + did not support black men's voting rights. + +Black people support Republican party and make up largest Southern +constituency. +White Democrats maintain power in the South after reconstruction. + +600 black men served as state legislators *during* reconstruction +2 black senators and 14 black people in house. + +Slave codes -> black codes. + - Reduce black empowerment by allowing whites and white authorities + to sentence black people into forced labor and road workers for + undocumented employment or "disorderliness" + +KKK burned black homes, churches, meeting places to suppress their vote +and intimidate black communities. Also attacked white Republicans. + "Redeemers" restored white power. + +Election of 1876 +- Republican Gov. of Ohio: Rutherford B Hayes +- Dem. Gov. of NY: Samuel J Tilden + +Both Republicans and Dems claim victory because of disputed electoral +votes (from Southern states). + - Likely fraud on both sides + - 15 person federal commission to decide election. All vote along + party lines, and 8-7 declare Hayes the winner. + - Dem states don't contest this vote in exchange for compromise. + +The Compromise of 1877 +- Ends Reconstruction +- End occupation of the South +- Build Texas and Pacific Railroad to aid Texas growth +- Southerner as Postmaster General (why did they want this? + suppression?) +- Funds to rebuild Southern economy +- "The solution to "the race problem" will be left to the southern state + governments" + +WEB DuBois calls reconstruction a failure. + +PART TWO + +Southerners embraced nostalgic idea of pre-Civil War South with +slave-grown wealth, strong family values, and the idea that the Civil +War was a noble fight against an oppressive federal government. +"The past isn't dead. It's not even past." -- Faulkner +Grady, editor of Atlanta Constitution looks forward to New South: +- Fair democracy +- Small farms, mills, factories +- Mixed industrialization and agri. growth. +South doesn't achieve this. + +Sharecropping, disenfranchisement, lynching did their best to maintain +slavery-like social order. +- Constant debt because poor blacks didn't have assets (land, tools, + supplies, food) + - Debt peonage + +Jim Crow laws +- White supremacy and "negrophobia" +- Social segregation +- Send message of inferiority to black people and deprive them of + privelege. +- States (MS, LA, GA) disenfranchised blacks to 3%: + - Poll taxes + - Grandfather clauses + - Property requirements or constitution knowledge or literacy + - Also 1/4 white voters + - Attacks by KKK and others + +1896: + LA passes separate cars act, requiring equal but separate + racial segregation + "Necessary to prevent danger of friction of interaction between + races" + +Plessy: 1/8 black, 7/8 white + As a defendant, his lawyer frames case as the right of state to + declare him as white or black (not about quality). + LA SC declares intrastate rail travel jurisdiction of state. + Fed. SC upholds this under "separate but equal" + John Marshall dissents on basis of stigmatizing and ignoring + color-blindness/castlessness of constitution. A badge of slavery + +Jim Crow also: + - banned black gun ownership + - prevented interracial marrying + - allowed white mobs to control black existence with segregation + +Lynchmobs: 3500, mostly in 1890s. + - Based in a deep fear of "black hypersexuality"---black people + attacking white women and undermining system of white supremacy + - Often run by well-respected members of the community, but even + poor whites participated, declaring alliance with other classes. + +Ida B. Wells + - Born into slavery + - Helped schools + - Believed blacks should protest white violence + - Against lynching + - Refused to give up railcar seat to white man. + - Sues railroad company for throwing her from the train + - Civil Rights act of 1875 banned discrimination in public acm. + - TN SC overturns lower court ruling in her favor + +The People's Grocery Store +- Black-owned grocery store prospered at expense of white-owned + competitors +- Owners kidnapped ("arrested" by white officers) and shot dead by white + men. +- Ida B Wells writes about this + - Denounced lynching + - Debunked idea that black men raped white women + - Threatened by white terrorists + +Booker T Washington +- At a time that response to racial inequality was still being + determined +- Established Tuskegee Institute, entirely staffed by black people. +- Believed that black people should develop skills as farmers, artisans, + shopkeepers because white people needed black people and that this + would earn their respect in the New South. + - Accommodationist: wanted to work in the system + - Praised by white politicians and whites thought that industrial + education would keep blacks in their place + - Many of his critics thought the same thing +- Atlanta Compromise Speech + - Supported appeasing white leaders because then the leaders would + declare an end to racial violence. + - Appeasement in form of segregation ("separate as the five + fingers") +- WEB DuBois major critic + - Rejected accommodation + - Believed in confrontation + - Helped found NAACP with Ida B Wells + - Boycotts, lawsuits to become equal + - Argued that Washington's accommodation would maintain a slave-like + system, and believes that political power leads to economic power. + +WEB DuBois, NAACP +- Cooperated with white people +- Criminalize lynching +- Booker T Washington secretly funded confrontationist lawsuits. |