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Reconstruction and the New South

Reconstruction and the New South. How do you account for the failure of Reconstruction (1865 – 1877) to bring social and economic equality of opportunity to the former slaves? (83)

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Reconstruction and the New South

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  1. Reconstruction and the New South

  2. How do you account for the failure of Reconstruction (1865 – 1877) to bring social and economic equality of opportunity to the former slaves? (83) • Discuss the political, economic, and social reforms introduced in the South between 1864 and 1877. To what extent did these reforms survive the Compromise of 1877? (92) • Analyze the economic consequences of the Civil War with respect to any TWO of the following in the United States between 1865 and 1880.: Agriculture Transportation Labor Industrialization (97) • Following Reconstruction, many southern leaders promoted the idea of a “New South.” To what extent was this “New South” a reality by the time of the First World War? In your answer be sure to address TWO of the following: Economic development, Politics, Race relations

  3. I. From Presidential to Congressional Reconstruction • Johnson follows spirit of AL’s 10% Plan (general leniency) • AJ: blacks incapable self-gov supervised by + subord. to whites • Refuses use Pres power help blacks (allows Black Codes) + some in Congress “tyrants” and “traitors” moderate Repub. pushed into Radical camp (led T. Stevens) • 1868:Tenure of Office impeach (no convict)

  4. II. Congressional Reconstruction: Radical or Conservative? • Concern: upset constitutional balance State + Fed (precedent)? • Basis for action?: • Temporary (regain rights + powers when readmitted): • 1) Conquered territory • 2) Congress’ war powers (“grasp of war”) • Permanent: • 3) Const. guarantee republican gov’t • Rejected by most S would have to willingly reconstruct conditions key

  5. A. Radical Steps 1) Freedman’s Bureau: aid blacks: education, land, supplies, food 2) Civil Rights: enforce 13th: all treated same before law, cases tried Federal courts • Essentially 14th Amend 3) Fed troops defend rights (register blacks vote pre-15th) • J. Garfield: “Congress shall place civil Government before these people of the rebel States, and a cordon of bayonets behind them.”

  6. Guarantee republican gov’t by guaranteeing Republican gov’t • Blacks vote Republican influence gov’t more $ schools • School attendance rises (black + white) • True freedom= land: dependence on whites repudiate freedom • Some: planters on wrong side confiscate (e.g. Tories): too close to socialism • Blacks try buy auction (failure pay taxes), but little cash carpetbaggers

  7. B. Unfinished Revolution • 1) Southern opposition: a) KKK unwilling refight CW, b) insidious • 2) Northern racism • 3) Corruption + cost • 4) Splinter Repub’s: AJ out + fulfillment limited goals mods w/conservatives • 5) Resistance to radicalism: fear labor movement, Const. rev., moving too fast •  loss econ. support blacks dependent white landowners

  8. III. The New South, 1865-1914: Rhetoric and Reality

  9. How did the Civil War and Radical Reconstruction change the South? • No slavery • No secession • New political and economic realities

  10. A. The New South Creed • Weaknesses of Old South • Slavery • Political system rigged for planters • Dependence on agriculture

  11. 1. “Out Yankee the Yankee” industrialize/modernize • 2. Emphasized historical commonalities N+S • 3. Slavery unfortunate accident; never condemn for brutality real sin South economically backward • 4. CW liberates S obsolete labor system • 5. “Race Question”: by 1870s, North tired of it NS spokesmen say put in hands of southerners: white southerners “know the Negro best” (modern descendants of mythical, kindly slave owners) • New South Creed middle-ground Radical Republicans and Klan

  12. Rhetoric of “New South,” reformed and modern, masked deep conservatism • Little change in race relations • Little help for poor • Late 1860s: Railroad workers paid $1.75-$2 a day • Plantation workers: 50 cents a day

  13. B. Realities of the New South 1. Colonial Economy • Industry grew considerably • # industrial shops more than tripled: 50,000 to 180,000 • Income from agriculture declined • # manufacturing workers increased (esp. textiles) • Better pay • Industrialization of Agriculture • Mechanization + opens up • Pre-Civil War: 90% of cotton grown by blacks • 1875: 40% picked by white tenant farmers • Urbanization • Reconstruction of railroads

  14. South still far behind the North, colonial economy: • Raw materials exported to more industrialized North • Dominated by foreign capital (Northern and European) • Similar to Latin American nations • Profit from unity of North and South elite: low taxes, keep workers down

  15. C. “The Lost Cause” • Southern nationalism thin: few believed should be more like North • No desire for another war, but emphasized cultural distinctiveness and superiority • Nostalgia for the Old South • 1889: United Confederate Veterans • 1895: United Daughters of the Confederacy • Monuments to the Confederacy • 4th of July: Confederate soldiers parade • Controlling the image of the past grants power over the present and future • “Birth of a Nation;” “Gone with the Wind”

  16. IV. The New South: Blacks

  17. 1880-1910: The Nadir in Race Relations The new State Constitutions initially were more democratic and protective of women’s + blacks’ rights than most in the North. A. Economic Disenfranchisement • Blacks lost the gains made during RR • 40 acres and a mule never materialized • Economic dependence, workplace segregation • Same room

  18. Segregation serves factory owners • Stops racial union • Why unions eventually backs Civil Rights in the 1940s loss of jobs from North to low-wage South • Keeps wages down: divide and conquer • Confers psychological benefit on whites: don’t feel as exploited race trumps class • Richard Wright, Black Boy: whites make blacks fight each other, place bets

  19. Sharecropping: tenants pay debts share of crop • Blacks still primarily ag. workers well into the 20th century • Disproportionate power landowners + creditors

  20. Black Percentage of Population

  21. Blacks not much better off than slaves • 1. Debt Peonage: • Blacks work 1/4 to 1/3 share of crop (mostly cotton) • Seed and supplies debt general store (often owned land owner) • Overpriced, interest often 50% (usury) • Falling agricultural prices (mechanization + overproduction glut)

  22. Sharecroppers not break even more debt crop lien debt peonage • Fraud (black illiteracy) 2. Laws passed stop blacks seeking better conditions • Illegal whites offer blacks new jobs • Breach of contract arrest

  23. B. Political Disenfranchisement After RR dramatic decline black participation • LA: 1870s+80s: 100,000+ black voters • 1900: 5,320 • Influence in State and Federal government

  24. South got around 15th Amendment with: • 1. Poll taxes (pay in cash, receipt presented months later) • 2. Literacy tests • 3. Gerrymandering • 4. Polling locations distant • 5. Ferry operators • 6. Last-minute relocation • 7. Shot-guns at the polling places • Colfax Massacre, 1873; 150 blacks killed; U.S. v. Cruikshank

  25. Some whites also potentially disenfranchised by laws • Grandfather clause • Leniency with enforcement

  26. C. Social Disenfranchisement Under-fund black education (teachers paid less) • Would only create “uppity” blacks: • “To educate a [black person] is to spoil a field hand” • Williams v. California (2000): settlement for $1 billion

  27. Social segregation • Denied equal access to public facilities: • Theaters • Schools • Trains • Federal Government complicity: • 1896: Plessy v. Ferguson: “separate but equal”

  28. D. Legal Disenfranchisement • Courts backbone white supremacy: all white juries, different enforcement • “worse than slavery” • Black death not expensive: no owners Convict Lease System • Incarcerate black men and lease out as slave labor • Petty + trumped up charges: • Mississippi “Pig Law”: grand larceny: more than $10 (cost of a pig); 5 years • Specific purpose: labor

  29. Jim Crow Criminal System • Sam Hose • Convict lease system • “the live nigger is worth more than the dead one” • “If a nigger kills a white man, that’s murder. If a white man kills a nigger, that’s justifiable homicide. If a nigger kills a nigger, that’s one less nigger.” • “Whose nigger are you?”

  30. SC Gov Cole Blease on commutating death sentence (1913) • “This defendant was convicted of killing another negro. I am naturally against electrocuting or hanging one negro for killing another, because, if a man had two fine mules running loose in a lot and one went mad and kicked and killed the other he certainly would not take his gun and shoot the other mule, but would take that mule and work it and try to get another mule; therefore, I believe that when one negro kills another, that he should be put in the Penitentiary and made to work for the State.”

  31. "In 82% of the studies [reviewed], race of the victim was found to influence the likelihood of being charged with capital murder or receiving the death penalty, i.e., those who murdered whites were found more likely to be sentenced to death than those who murdered blacks."- United States General Accounting Office, Death Penalty Sentencing, February 1990 • Nationally, over 80% of murder victims in cases resulting in an execution were White, even though only 50% of murder victims generally are White • 96% of states conducting reviews of race and the death penalty have discovered a pattern of either race-of-victim or race-of-defendant discrimination, or both • 98% of the Chief district attorneys in death penalty states are White • Jury selection procedures: 1986 Batson v. Kentucky • A Philadelphia study found that Blacks received the death penalty at a 38% higher rate than others when comparing similar defendants and similar crimes • A North Carolina study found that the odds of receiving a death sentence rose by 3.5 times among those defendants whose victims were White • Since 1976, executions: White Defendant / Black Victim (15)Black Defendant / White Victim (223)

  32. E. The Democratic Party at Night: Context of Violence • System of oppression: black + white • Legal, political, economic, social, cultural not enough rope + shotgun • 1880-1910: dramatic rise in lynching • http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/themap/map.html

  33. Being “suspected” of raping a white woman a common excuse

  34. Others lynched for crossing some boundary they shouldn’t have: economic, social, physical • Racial etiquette: informal set of rules • Blacks give up the sidewalk • Don’t look whites (esp. women) in the eyes • Whites are Mister and Missus, blacks never are

  35. Economic success was crossing a boundary • Ida B. Wells: economics real cause • Booker T. Washington vs. W.E.B. DuBois: could economic strength lift blacks? • Tuskegee vs. Talented Tenth

  36. Listen to the NPR program “Remembering Jim Crow” • http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1138738

  37. But… • Blanche Kelso Bruce, elected 1875 Senator from Mississippi • Held local offices (tax collector, etc.): Republicans example; Democrats pacification • Served out term, unable go back Miss

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