4. Meaning of Freedom?
The Central Question facing American Society:
• What did African American Freedom Mean??
• Whites?
• Freedom did not = equality
• African Americans?
• Escaping the injustices of slavery
5. Visions of Freedom
• African Americans:
• Immediately claimed their vision of freedom
• mobilty, voting, land ownership, owning
their own labor, access to basic education
• Reconstituted their families
• Held political demonstrations/meetings
• Established independent churches
6. Freedmen’s Bureau
• established by Congress
• Administered by the Union Army
• Helped to settle disputes between whites and blacks over
land and labor
• Ensured justice in the courts
• Monitored elections
• Organized Schools
• 500 by 1866
7.
8. Visions of Freedom
• White Visions:
• Defined freedom in very narrow terms
• Did not want change
• White freedom = mastery
• Freedom = privilege not a right
• Freedom did not = political or civil equality
9. Black Codes 1865-1866
• Illustrate White Visions of Black Freedom
• Immediately passed by southern state legislatures
• Outlined legal rights
• Aimed at creating a subservient labor force
10.
11. Reconstruction
• Two Phases of Federal Reconstruction:
• Presidential, 1865-1867
• Congressional (Radical), 1867-1877
13. Congress
• Republican Party/Radical Republicans
• Northern Industrialists
• Free labor ideology
• Pres. Johnson vetoed all attempts to extend
rights to freedmen
• 1866 gained a majority in Congress/over-rule
veto
15. Reconstruction Amendments
• First Attempt of Federal Government to define the rights
of African Americans
• 13th, 14th, & 15th Amendments
• Southern states had to ratify these amendments to be
readmitted to the United States
16. 14th Amendment, 1868
• African Americans = US Citizens
• Equal protection under the law
• Put penalties on states that denied suffrage
to male citizens
• New Role for the Federal Government
17. Limits of 14th Amendment
• Uses the world “male”
• Difficult to enforce
• Did not guarantee suffrage to African Americans
• “equal protection” did not mean equality or equal
access to goods and services
• Leading to “separate but equal” in Plessy
ruling 1896
18. 15th Amendment, 1870
• Forbid states and and federal government
to deny suffrage to any citizen on account
of “race, color, or previous condition of
servitude.”
19. Limits of 15th Amendment
• Does not mention gender or religion
• Does not outlaw literacy tests, poll taxes,
grandfather clauses, property
qualifications, or discrimination against
women
20. End of Reconstruction
• Northerners grew tired of it
• Finally left southern states to deal with
their “own people”
• Democratic Party became the party of
White Supremacy
