IB History African Americans Between 1865 and 1929 Notes

The Aftermath of Emancipation and the “New South” (1865–1877)

1. Following the Civil War, the 13th Amendment (1865) abolished slavery, but the promise of freedom was limited by economic hardship and racial violence in the South.
2. During Reconstruction (1865–1877), African Americans briefly gained political representation and civil rightsunder federal protection, with leaders like Hiram Revels and Blanche K. Bruce elected to Congress.
3. However, after federal troops withdrew in 1877, white Southern elites regained control and promoted the idea of the “New South," an economy based on industrialization and cotton, but still dependent on cheap Black labor through sharecropping and tenant farming.
4. Sharecropping trapped many freedpeople in cycles of debt, creating conditions similar to slavery and reinforcing economic dependency on white landowners.

Legal Repression: Black Codes, Jim Crow, and Plessy v. Ferguson

1. The Black Codes (1865–1866) were Southern state laws that restricted Black freedom, limiting movement, enforcing labor contracts, and criminalizing unemployment.
2. By the 1890s, Jim Crow laws institutionalized racial segregation across the South in schools, transportation, and public spaces, enforcing a rigid racial hierarchy.
3. The Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) legalized segregation under the doctrine of “separate but equal,” providing constitutional justification for systemic discrimination.
4. Violence and intimidation, including lynchings and attacks by groups like the Ku Klux Klan, enforced white supremacy and suppressed Black political participation.