Civil rights movement (1865–1896)

Civil rights movement (1865–1896)

aspect of history

Part of	African American history
Followed by	Civil rights movement (1896–1954)

De civil rights movement (1865–1896) aim to eliminate racial discrimination against African Americans, improve dema educational den employment opportunities, den establish dema electoral power, just after de abolition of slavery insyd de United States. Na de period from 1865 to 1895 see a tremendous change insyd de fortunes of de Black community wey dey follow de elimination of slavery insyd de South.

Immediately after de American Civil War, de federal government launch a program dem know as Reconstruction wich aim make e rebuild de states of de former Confederacy. De federal programs sanso provide aid to de former slaves wey e attempt make e integrate dem into society as citizens. Both during den after dis period, Black people gain a substantial amount of political power wey na chaw of dem be able make dem move from abject poverty to land ownership. For de same time na resentment of dese gains by chaw whites result in an unprecedented campaign of violence wich na e be waged by local chapters of de Ku Klux Klan, den insyd de 1870s na ebe waged by paramilitary groups like de Red Shirts den White League.

Insyd 1896, na de Supreme Court rule insyd Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, a landmark wey dey uphold "separate buh equal" racial segregation as constitutional. Na e be a very significant setback give civil rights, as de legal, social, den political status of de Black population reach a nadir. From 1890 to 1908, dey begin plus Mississippi, na southern states pass new constitutions den laws wey dey disenfranchise chaw Black people den dey exclude dem from de political system, a status wey na e be maintained insyd chaw cases into de 1940s.

Na chaw of de early reform movement during dis era be spearheaded by de Radical Republicans, a faction of de Republican Party. By de end of de 19th century, plus disenfranchisement in progress make e exclude Black people from de political system altogeda, na de so-called lily-white movement sanso work make e substantially weaken de power of remaining Black people insyd de party. Na de most important civil rights leaders of dis period be Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) den Booker T. Washington (1856–1915).

Leadership

Chaw of de Black political leadership insyd dis area cam from de ministry, den from Union Civil War veterans. De white political leadership feature veterans den lawyers. Na ambitious young Black men get a difficult time dey wan turn lawyers, plus few exceptions such as James T. Rapier, Aaron Alpeoria Bradley den John Mercer Langston.

Na de upper class among de Black population largely be mulatto wey na dem be free before de war. During Reconstruction, na 19 of de 22 Black members of Congress be mulattoes. Na dese wealthier, mixed-race Black people represent de majority of de leaders insyd de civil rights movement of de 20th century as well. Hahn dey report say na de mulatto element hold disproportionate power insyd de Black political community insyd South Carolina den Louisiana. Na chaw of de leaders, however, sanso be dark-skinned den former slaves.

Key figures

• Norris Wright Cuney (1846–1898), Galveston, Texas union organizer den chairmo of de Republican Party of Texas.
• Timothy Thomas Fortune (1856–1928), journalist, publisher, den founder of de National Afro-American League
• John Mercer Langston (1829–1897), Virginia attorney, U.S. House representative, den presido of Virginia Normal and Collegiate Institute (now Virginia State University).
• Isaac Myers (1835–1891), trade unionist, founder of Colored National Labor Union
• Robert Smalls (1839–1915), Civil War Union Army hero, U.S. House representative wey komot South Carolina den founder of de Republican Party of South Carolina.

• Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin (1842–1924) editor, organizer, suffragist den founder of de Woman's Era, de first newspaper by den for African-American women
• Sojourner Truth (1797–1883), speaker den activist
• Booker T. Washington (1856–1915), educator, author, den first head of de Tuskegee Institute.
• Ida B. Wells (1862–1931), journalist, newspaper editor, den activist

Timeline

• 1863 - Emancipation Proclamation frees three of de 4 million slaves,1863–65.
• 1863 - De first Black make he be cam a college presido be Daniel Payne, at Wilberforce University insyd Ohio, Wen na e cam under de control of de African Methodist Episcopal Church.
• 1865 - Congress establish de Freedman's Bureau.
• 1865 - De Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution abolish slavery insyd de handful of Border states wey reman.
• 1865 - Dem found de Shaw Institute insyd Raleigh, North Carolina, de first historically Black college (HBCU) insyd de South.
• 1865 - Every southern state pass Black Codes wey na e restrict de Freedmen, wey na dem be emancipate buh dem no be citizens yet; de Freedman's Bureau block enforcement of dese laws.
• 1865 – dem found Atlanta University by de American Missionary Association.
• 1866 - na dem pass Civil Rights Act of 1866 wey dey establish dat all persons dem born insyd de United States now be citizens.
• 1866 - Dem form de first chapter of de Ku Klux Klan insyd Pulaski, Tennessee, a paramilitary insurgent group, dem make up of white Confederate Army veterans, make dem enforce white supremacy.

• 1866 - Dem form de U.S. Army regiment of Buffalo Soldiers (African Americans) form.
• 1866 - Lincoln Institute, dem later rename Lincoln University, be founded by returning Black Union soldiers.
• 1867 - dem found Howard University insyd Washington, D.C. Wey be funded by de federal government.
• 1868 - De Fourteenth Amendment to de United States Constitution; dey guarantee citizenship den dey require dat state governments provide due process den equal protection.
• 1870 - De Fifteenth Amendment to de United States Constitution dey prevent de restriction of de vote based on race, color anaa previous condition of servitude.
• 1870 - Hiram Rhodes Revels cam turn de first Black member of de Senate; Joseph Rainey cam turn de first Black member of de U.S. House of Representatives.
• 1870- African American Police Constable Wyatt Outlaw of Graham, North Carolina wey de Ku Klux Klan lynch.
• 1871 - dem pass de US Civil Rights Act of 1871, dem sanso know as de Klan Act.
• 1872 - dem swear in P.B.S. Pinchback as de first Black Governor of a state of de United States of America.
• 1873 - Insyd de Slaughterhouse Cases de U.S. Supreme Court vote make dem exclude state laws from being subject to de 14th amendment.

• 1873 - De Colfax den Coushatta Massacres - Murders of Black den white Republicans insyd Louisiana.
• 1874 - Founding of paramilitary groups wey act as de "military arm of de Democratic Party": de White League insyd Louisiana den de Red Shirts insyd Mississippi, den North den South Carolina. Dem terrorize Black people den Republicans, wey dem turn dem out of office, killing sam, disrupting rallies, den suppressing voting.
• 1875 - Civil Rights Act of 1875 cam turn law.
• 1876 - De Hamburg Massacre occur wen local people riot against African Americans wey na dem dey try to celebrate de Fourth of July; na dem kill African American Police Chief James Cook den five oda freemen.
• 1877 - Plus de Compromise of 1877, na federal troops withdraw from de South wey dem end Reconstruction.
• 1879 - Exodus of 1879, wer na thousands of African Americans migrate to Kansas.
• 1880 - In Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303, de Supreme Court rule say dem no fi exclude Black people from juries.
• 1880s - Segregation of public transportation. Na Tennessee segregate railroad cars, wey Florida follow (1887), Mississippi (1888), Texas (1889), Louisiana (1890), Alabama, Kentucky, Arkansas, den Georgia (1891), South Carolina (1898), North Carolina (1899), Virginia (1900), Maryland (1904), den Oklahoma (1907).

• 1881 - Booker T. Washington open de Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute (HBCU) insyd Tuskegee, Alabama.
• 1883 - De United States Supreme Court strike down de Civil Rights Act of 1875 as unconstitutional. Na de Court declare dat de Fourteenth Amendment dey forbid states, buh no be citizens, from discriminating.
• 1885 - A biracial populist coalition achieve power insyd Virginia (briefly).
• 1885 - na dem ordain African-American Samuel David Ferguson a bishop of de Episcopal church.
• 1886 - Norris Wright Cuney, cam turn de chairmo of de Texas Republican Party, de most powerful role wey any African American hold insyd de South during de 19th century.
• 1890 - Mississippi pass a new constitution wey effectively disfranchise chaw Black people (poll taxes, residency den literacy tests).
• 1892 - Ida B. Wells publish ein pamphlet Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases.
• 1893 - Ida B. Wells, Frederick Douglass, Irvine Garland Penn, den Ferdinand Lee Barnett publish The Reason Why the Colored American Is Not At the World's Columbian Exposition den protest Black exclusion from de Chicago World's Fair.
• 1895 - Booker T. Washington deliver ein Atlanta Compromise address at de Cotton States and International Exposition insyd Atlanta, Georgia.
• 1895 - W. E. B. Du Bois be de first African American wey dem award a Ph.D. by Harvard University.
• 1896 - na dem unseat Wright Cuney as de chairmo of de Texas Republican Party.
• 1896 - Insyd Plessy v. Ferguson de Supreme Court uphold racial segregation of "separate buh equal" public facilities.

Read further

• Brown, Nikki L.M., and Barry M. Stentiford, eds. The Jim Crow Encyclopedia (Greenwood, 2008)
• Carle, Susan D. Defining the Struggle: National Racial Justice Organizing, 1880–1915 (Oxford UP, 2013). 404pp.
• Davis, Hugh. "We will be satisfied with nothing less": the African American struggle for equal rights in the North during Reconstruction. (2011).
• Finkelman, Paul, ed. Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895 (3 vol. 2006) 700 articles by experts
• Foner, Eric (1988). Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution. Harper and Row. ISBN 9780062383235.
• Foner, Eric. "Rights and the Constitution in Black Life during the Civil War and Reconstruction". Journal of American History 74.3 (1987): 863–883. online
• Frankel, Noralee. Break Those Chains at Last: African Americans 1860–1880 (1996). excerpt; for high school audience

• Hahn, Steven. A nation under our feet: Black political struggles in the rural South, from slavery to the great migration (2003); Pulitzer Prize; excerpt; online review
• Jenkins, Jeffery A., Justin Peck, and Vesla M. Weaver. "Between Reconstructions: Congressional Action on Civil Rights, 1891–1940." Studies in American Political Development 24#1 (2010): 57–89. online Archived 2016-03-03 at the Wayback Machine
• Logan, Rayford. The Betrayal of the Negro from Rutherford B. Hayes to Woodrow Wilson (2nd ed. 1965).
• Lowery, Charles D. Encyclopedia of African-American civil rights: from emancipation to the present (Greenwood, 1992). online

• Raffel, Jeffrey. Historical dictionary of school segregation and desegregation: The American experience (Bloomsbury, 1998) online
• Strickland, Arvarh E., and Robert E. Weems, eds. The African American Experience: An Historiographical and Bibliographical Guide (Greenwood, 2001). 442pp; 17 topical chapters by experts.
• Swinney, Everette. "Enforcing the Fifteenth Amendment, 1870–1877." Journal of Southern History 28#2 (1962): 202–218. in JSTOR.
• Woodward, C. Vann. Origins of the New South, 1877–1913 (1951).

Leadership

• Chesson, Michael B. "Richmond's Black Councilman, 1871–96," in Howard N. Rabinowitz, ed. Southern Black Leaders of the Reconstruction Era (1982) pp 191–222.
• Dray, Philip. Capitol men: the epic story of Reconstruction through the lives of the first Black congressmen (2010).
• Foner, Eric. Freedom's Lawmakers: A Directory of Black Officeholders during Reconstruction (1993).
• Gatewood, Willard B. (2000). Aristocrats of color: the Black elite, 1880-1920. University of Arkansas Press. ISBN 9781610750257.
• Holt, Thomas. Black over white: Negro political leadership in South Carolina during Reconstruction (1979).
• Holt, Thomas C. "Negro State Legislators in South Carolina during Reconstruction," in Howard N. Rabinowitz, ed. Southern Black Leaders of the Reconstruction Era (1982) pp 223–49.

• Hume, Richard L. "Negro delegates to the state constitutional conventions of 1867–69," in Howard N. Rabinowitz, ed. Southern Black Leaders of the Reconstruction Era (1982) pp 129–54
• Hume, Richard L. and Jerry B. Gough. Black people, Carpetbaggers, and Scalawags: The Constitutional Conventions of Radical Reconstruction (LSU Press, 2008); statistical classification of delegates.
• Jenkins, Jeffery A., and Boris Heersink. "Republican Party Politics and the American South: From Reconstruction to Redemption, 1865–1880." (2016 paper t the 2016 Annual Meeting of the Southern Political Science Association); online.
• Loewenberg, Bert James and Ruth Bogin. Black Women in Nineteenth-Century American Life: Their Words, Their Thoughts, Their Feelings (Pennsylvania State UP, 1976).
• Meir, August. "Afterword: New Perspectives on the Nature of Black Political Leadership during Reconstruction." in Howard N. Rabinowitz, ed. Southern Black Leaders of the Reconstruction Era (1982) ppe 393–406.

• Pitre, Merline. Through Many Dangers, Toils, and Snares: The Black Leadership of Texas, 1868–1900 Eakin Press, 1985.
• Rabinowitz, Howard N., ed. Southern Black Leaders of the Reconstruction Era (1982), 422 pages; 16 chapters by experts, on leaders and key groups.
• Rankin, David C. "The origins of Negro leadership in New Orleans during Reconstruction," in Howard N. Rabinowitz, ed. Southern Black Leaders of the Reconstruction Era (1982) 155–90.
• Smith, Jessie Carney, ed. Encyclopedia of African American Business (2 vol. Greenwood 2006). excerpt
• Vincent, Charles. "Negro Leadership and Programs in the Louisiana Constitutional Convention of 1868." Louisiana History (1969): 339–351. in JSTOR
• Walters, Ronald W.; Robert C. Smith (1999). African American leadership. SUNY Press. ISBN 9780791441459.

Individual leaders

• Anderson, Eric. "James O'Hara of North Carolina: Black Leadership and local government" in Howard N. Rabinowitz, ed. Southern Black Leaders of the Reconstruction Era (1982) 101–128.
• Brock, Euline W. "Thomas W. Cardozo: Fallible Black Reconstruction Leader." Journal of Southern History 47.2 (1981): 183–206. in JSTOR
• Grosz, Agnes Smith. "The Political Career of Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback." Louisiana Historical Quarterly 27 (1944): 527–612.
• Harlan, Louis R. Booker T. Washington: The Making of a Black Leader, 1856–1901 (1972).
• Harris, William C. "Blanche K. Bruce of Mississippi: Conservative Assimilationist." in Howard N. Rabinowitz, ed. Southern Black Leaders of the Reconstruction Era (1982). 3-38.
• Harris, William C. "James Lynch: Black Leader in Southern Reconstruction," Historian (1971) 34#1 pp 40–61, DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6563.1971.tb00398.x

• Haskins, James. Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback (1973).
• Hine, William C. "Dr. Benjamin A. Boseman, Jr.: Charleston's Black Physician-Politician," in Howard N. Rabinowitz, ed. Southern Black Leaders of the Reconstruction Era (1982) pp 335–62.
• Klingman, Peter D. "Race and Faction in the Public Career of Florida's Josiah T. Walls." in Howard N. Rabinowitz, ed. Southern Black Leaders of the Reconstruction Era (1982). 59–78.
• Klingman, Peter D. Josiah Walls: Florida's Black Congressman of Reconstruction (1976).
• Lamson, Peggy. The Glorious Failure: Black Congressman Robert Brown Elliott and the Reconstruction in South Carolina (1973).
• McFeely, William S. Frederick Douglass (1995).
• Moneyhon, Carl H. "George T. Ruby and the Politics of Expediency in Texas," in Howard N. Rabinowitz, ed. Southern Black Leaders of the Reconstruction Era (1982) pp 363–92.
• Norrell, Robert J. "Booker T. Washington: Understanding the Wizard of Tuskegee," Journal of Black people in Higher Education 42 (2003–4) pp. 96–109 in JSTOR

• Norrell, Robert J. Up from history: The life of Booker T. Washington (2009).
• Reidy, Joseph P. "Karen A. Bradley: Voice of Black Labor in the Georgia Lowcountry," in Howard N. Rabinowitz, ed. Southern Black Leaders of the Reconstruction Era (1982) pp 281–309.
• Richardson, Joe M. "Jonathan C. Gibbs: Florida's Only Negro Cabinet Member." Florida Historical Quarterly 42.4 (1964): 363–368. in JSTOR
• Russell, James M. and Thornbery, Jerry. "William Finch of Atlanta: The Black Politician as Civic Leader," in Howard N. Rabinowitz, ed. Southern Black Leaders of the Reconstruction Era (1982) pp 309–34.
• Schweninger, Loren. "James Rapier of Alabama and the Noble Cause of Reconstruction," in Howard N. Rabinowitz, ed. Southern Black Leaders of the Reconstruction Era (1982). 79–100.
• Woody, Robert H. "Jonathan Jasper Wright, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of South Carolina, 1870–77." Journal of Negro History 18.2 (1933): 114–131. in JSTOR
• White, Richard C. (2017). The Republic for Which It Stands. Oxford University Press.

Gender

• Bond, Beverly G. "'Every Duty Incumbent Upon Them': African-American Women in Nineteenth Century Memphis." Tennessee Historical Quarterly 59.4 (2000): 254.
• Clinton, Catherine. "Bloody terrain: Freedwomen, sexuality and violence during reconstruction." Georgia Historical Quarterly 76.2 (1992): 313–332. in JSTOR
• Edwards, Laura F. Gendered Strife and Confusion: The Political Culture of Reconstruction (1997).
• Farmer-Kaiser, Mary. Freedwomen and the Freedmen's Bureau: Race, Gender, and Public Policy in the Age of Emancipation (Fordham Univ Press, 2010). online review

• Frankel, Noralee. Freedom's women: Black women and families in Civil War era Mississippi (1999).
• Hunter, Tera W. To 'Joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women's Lives and Labors after the Civil War (Harvard University Press, 1997).
• Oglesby, Catherine. "Gender and History of the Postbellum US South." History Compass 8.12 (2010): 1369–1379; historiography, mostly of white women.
• Olson, Lynne. Freedom's daughters: The unsung heroines of the civil rights movement from 1830 to 1970 (2001).

State den local studies

• Cresswell, Stephen. Multiparty Politics in Mississippi, 1877–1902 (1995).
• Davis, D. F., et al. "Before the Ghetto: Black Detroit in the Nineteenth Century." Urban History Review (1977) 6#1 pp. 99–106 in JSTOR
• Doyle, Don H. New Men, New Cities, New South: Atlanta, Nashville, Charleston, Mobile, 1860–1910 (1990) excerpt
• Drago, Edmund L. Black Politicians and Reconstruction in Georgia: A Splendid Failure (1992)
• Green, Hilary. Educational Reconstruction: African American Schools in the Urban South, 1865–1890 (Fordham UP, 2016), Case studies of Richmond, Virginia, and Mobile, Alabama. online review

• Hornsby Jr., Alton, ed. Black America: A State-by-State Historical Encyclopedia (2 vol 2011) excerpt
• Hornsby Jr., Alton. A Short History of Black Atlanta, 1847–1993 (2015).
• Jenkins, Wilbert L. Seizing the New Day: African Americans in Post–Civil War Charleston. (2003).
• Jewell, Joseph O. Race, social reform, and the making of a middle class: The American Missionary Association and Black Atlanta, 1870–1900 (2007).
• Rabinowitz, Howard N. Race Relations in the Urban South: 1865–1890 (1978)
• Wharton, Vernon Lane. The Negro in Mississippi: 1865–1890 (1947)

Primary sources

• Foner, Philip, ed. The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass: Reconstruction and After (1955).
• Smith, John David. We Ask Only for Even-handed Justice: Black Voices from Reconstruction, 1865–1877 (2nd ed. 2014)
• Work, Monroe N. (1912). Negro Year Book and Annual Encyclopedia of the Negro., First edition was 1913.
• Reid, Whitelaw (1866). After the War: A Southern Tour., detailed coverage by Yankee journalist, with focus on Freedmen.

• Richardson, Joe M. (1965). "The Negro in Post Civil-War Tennessee: A Report by a Northern Missionary". Journal of Negro Education. 34 (4): 419–424. doi:10.2307/2294093. JSTOR 2294093.
• Wells-Barnett, Ida B. Southern horrors and other writings: the anti-lynching campaign of Ida B. Wells, 1892–1900. Ed. Jacqueline Jones Royster. Bedford Books, 1997.
• Winegarten, Ruthie, ed. (2014). Black Texas Women: A Sourcebook. University of Texas Press. pp. 44–69. ISBN 9780292785564.

External links

• "African American Perspectives: Pamphlets from the Daniel A. P. Murray Collection, 1818–1907" Most are from 1875 to 1900.
• Booker T. Washington Papers, vol 1-3
• "Booker T. Washington: The Man and the Myth Revisited." (2007) PowerPoint presentation By Dana Chandler
• Civil Rights Resource Guide, from the Library of Congress
• "The Long History of the African American Civil Rights Movement in Florida" Archived 2016-01-10 at the Wayback Machine