In his 1915 book, The Negro in the United States, W.E.B. DuBois wrote, "There was one thing that the white South feared more than negro dishonesty, ignorance, and incompetency, and that was negro honesty, knowledge, and efficiency” (“The Negro” Par. 41). After the end of the Civil War, white southerners were faced with one of the worst nightmares coming to true: African Americans were freed from slavery, granted equal protection, and given the right to vote. As Reconstruction progressed, African Americans were confronted with significant change for the fist tim in the history of the United States. After the removal of the Federal Troops following the corrupt bargain of 1877, there was a period of relative calm in the South which was ended by the Supreme Court decision to legalize segregation in the Plessy v. …show more content…
The lives of African Americans regressed to their Antebellum states due to a combination of violence and legal action following the end of Reconstruction bringing about a period of violence and anarchy. During the Reconstruction Period, it seemed that Congress and the presence of Federal troops would be enough to rebuild and reform the decimated South. Lincoln’s plan to reintegrate the South was considered lenient and focused on bringing the South back into the Union as quickly as possible. After Lincoln’s death, Congress implemented a series of harsher regulations know as Congressional Reconstruction, which came to an end with the election of President Rutherford B. Hayes in the 1876 election (“America’s” Par. 3). In the election of 1876 Democrat Samuel Tilden won the popular vote but disputes over the electoral votes in Florida, Louisiana and
In the 1876 election between the Ohio state governor Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel J. Tilden of New York, there was a confusion of who won. Tilden, the democratic candidate, received 250,000 more popular votes, and got 184 electoral votes of the 185 he needed to win. Rutherford B. Hayes only received 165 electoral votes. However, twenty of the votes were disputed due to irregular returns to Oregon, Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina. Shortly after the reelection of Ulysses S. Grant, an economic crisis hit the U. S. called The Panic of 1873.
The problems that came after this were caused by the Vietnam War. Because all of the US resources needed to go into funding the war, African Americans were left out to dry once again by the government. This is shown when Martin Luther King Jr. says, “The promises of the Great Society have been shot down on the battlefield of Vietnam” (Painter 305). In the drafting of the war, more black people were drafted which caused problems because now Blacks were dying in larger numbers than whites and that was yet another inequality that enraged African Americans. This time period was one of success and defeat in the eyes of the African American people.
W.E.B DuBois was a man who wanted equality between both races. His ideas about having all blacks being educated and joining in things involving the government was to give them a better opportunity. His ideas still go on today among people of color because we all want the similar things he wanted. He believed the country's problem was the separation between white and blacks. To this day that is still a major problem.
This led to continued to tensions between not only the north and south but also the blacks and the whites in America. According to The Unfinished Nation, the per capita income of African Americans increase from about one-quarter to about one-half of the per capita income of White citizens (365). Sadly certain
African Americans face a struggle with racism which has been present in our country before the Civil War began in 1861. America still faces racism today however, around the 1920’s the daily life of an African American slowly began to improve. Thus, this time period was known by many, as the “Negro Fad” (O’Neill). The quality of life and freedom of African Americans that lived in the United States was constantly evolving and never completely considered ‘equal’. From being enslaved, to fighting for their freedom, African Americans were greatly changing the status quo and beginning to make their mark in the United States.
Peter Schroeder Dr. Christopher Marshall Modern United States History 2/2/17 Writing Assignment 1: The African-American Experience with Reconstruction Reconstruction among the south refers to the point in time which the United States was attempting to establish a relationship between the union and the rebels. The Union had won the civil war, so the next step was to begin to mend the broken relationship between the north and the south. Though historians cannot agree on when it began, there is merit in saying that it started before the end of the Civil War. After victory, had been solidified for the Union, attention of President Lincoln turned towards reconstruction.
Reconstruction was a period of time dedicated to rebuilding the nation after the Civil War. The war ended with the South being defeated and their economy being devastated. Many Southerners struggled after the war with rebuilding their land and lives. The President and Congress had to decide the terms for which the former Confederate states would be permitted to join the Union. President Lincoln’s plan for reuniting the country was found in the Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction.
This reading addressed the idea of “double consciousness” The introduction was though provoking and challenged he reader to think about what race really is. Not only this but is brought up the idea of colorblind racism and people being unaware of the privilege that they have both historically and presently. This reading was also an excerpt of The Souls Of Black Folk by W.E.B. Dubois. He further addresses double consciousness in this book.
Groups such as the Ku Klux Klan became prominent in the south. however, this was no longer something reconstruction could help former slaves with. Eventually, Hayes was elected after Johnsons’ impeachment and the Reconstruction era ended. The reconstruction ended in 1877 due to the Compromise of 1877 and the pulling of republicans alongside union troops out of the deep south. though the reconstruction attempted to unify the country back together as one by allowing confederate states into the union under strict conditions, and to help former slaves by granting basic human rights there were still many issues present throughout the
“The most oppressive feature of black secondary education was that southern local and state governments, through maintaining and expanding the benefits of public secondary education for white children, refused to provide public high school facilities for black children.” In sum, Anderson uses this chapter to build a broader argument about the “separate, but equal doctrine” under Plessy v. Ferguson that mandated segregation. More specifically, he situates this argument through case studies in Lynchburg, VA and Little Rock, AR. In the culminating chapter, James Anderson discusses the emergence of historically black universities and black land-grant colleges.
The American civil war led to the reunion of the South and the North. But, its consequences led the Republicans to take the lead of reconstructing what the war had destroyed especially in the South because it contained larger numbers of newly freed slaves. Just after the civil war, America entered into what was called as the reconstruction era. Reconstruction refers to when “the federal government established the terms on which rebellious Southern states would be integrated back into the Union” (Watts 246). As a further matter, it also meant “the process of helping the 4 million freed slaves after the civil war [to] make the transition to freedom” (DeFord and Schwarz 96).
Within a few chapters of the novel, the readers start to realize that Monk struggles with identity issues. The idea of how family and art can create and also erase identity, is the main message Percival Everett is trying to get across. W.E.B Dubois’s article, “Souls of Black Folk,” was written in 1926, however, it is still relevant in today’s society. African Americans artist cannot succeed. They are still discriminated, by society.
America’s history has been marked by periods of tumult and periods of stability within its borders, C. Vann Woodward’s book, The Strange Career of Jim Crow, chronicles the events that happen after the Reconstruction period, showcasing the problems that Americans went through. The Strange Career of Jim Crow attacks segregation starting with its foundations and then records the laws and codes that the African-American population lived under during that time period. In his book Woodward points out the origins of Jim Crow laws and the segregation that goes with it, stating “One of the strangest things about the career of Jim Crow was that the system was born in the North and reached an advanced age before moving South in force. ”1 This book review
African-American historian W.E.B Dubois illustrated how the Civil War brought the problems of African-American experiences into the spotlight. As a socialist, he argued against the traditional Dunning interpretations and voiced opinions about the failures and benefits of the Civil War era, which he branded as a ‘splendid failure’. The impacts of Civil War era enabled African-Americans to “form their own fraternal organizations, worship in their own churches and embrace the notion of an activist government that promoted and safeguarded the welfare of its citizens.”
In the first paragraph of The Souls of Black Folk, DuBois speaks of a problem. Specifically, there is the question, “How does it feel to be a problem?” This question—this problem—makes people feel uncomfortable to the point that it goes “unasked by some through feelings of delicacy. by others through the difficulty of rightly framing it.” These people don’t want to explicitly bring up the question for fear of insulting DuBois or don’t know how to ask it.