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.

The Search for Civil Rights: Leadership and Ideological Debates

1. Booker T. Washington, founder of the Tuskegee Institute, promoted vocational education and economic self-help as the path to racial progress. His Atlanta Compromise (1895) urged accommodation with white society, prioritizing economic stability over immediate civil rights.
2. W.E.B. Du Bois, co-founder of the NAACP (1909), rejected Washington’s gradualism, advocating for political activism, higher education, and protest. His concept of the “Talented Tenth” argued that educated Black leaders should guide the community toward equality.
3. Marcus Garvey, a Jamaican-born leader, founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and championed Black pride, economic independence, and Pan-Africanism. His “Back to Africa” movement inspired global racial consciousness, though it faced criticism for separatism and unrealistic goals.
4. Despite ideological differences, all three leaders sought to redefine African American identity and autonomy within or beyond the oppressive framework of American society.

The Great Migration (1916–1930)

1. Over 1.5 million African Americans left the rural South for northern cities such as Chicago, Detroit, and New York, driven by Jim Crow oppression, racial violence, and low wages, and pulled by industrial job opportunities during World War I.
2. The migration transformed urban America, creating new Black working-class communities, political activism, and cultural expression, but also triggered racial tensions and riots in cities like Chicago (1919) and St. Louis (1917).

The Harlem Renaissance (1920s)

1. The Harlem Renaissance emerged in New York as a cultural and intellectual movement celebrating Black art, music, and literature.
2. Figures like Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Claude McKay, and Duke Ellington challenged racist stereotypes, expressed pride in African heritage, and redefined the image of African Americans in society.
3. The movement fostered racial consciousness and cultural confidence, connecting the artistic spirit of the 1920s with the political activism that would define the Civil Rights Movement decades later.