African-Americans Post-Civil War

During the “New South,” there was also an establishment of the “Convict-Lease” System, in which southern states leased gangs of convicted criminals to private interests as a cheap labor supply. Such a system is important as it set up the basis for the current prison industrial complex, in which there is a rapid expansion of the U.S inmate population due to the political influence of private prison companies and businesses that supply goods and services to government prison agencies. This complex, originating from the Convict-Lease system of Reconstruction disproportionately affects black men modernly, as it affected black men during the late 19th

Albeit Lincoln and Johnson made considerable concessions to the South during their terms, extremist Southern states like South Carolina kept gainsaying the outcome of the war by endeavoring to reinstitute Blacks into slave-like conditions through inequitable laws. Intransigent “Jim Crow” laws, Ebony Codes, and poll taxes sought to replicate the conditions of slavery for Blacks in the post-Civil War South by promoting discrimination and segregation. However, after the Radical Republicans took control of the Reconstruction, more rigorous “punishments” were inflicted on the Southern states to make them accept incipient laws bulwarking blacks. In many Southern states, military regimes were established until the states accepted the terms of re-ingression

In his report to the secretary of war, Major Butler poses the question that many individuals did during the time regarding fugitive slaves; “are they free”, and if so, “what do we do with them?” (Doc. A) Many adopted the slaves as proletarian workers and farmers, and as people began to recognize the importance of their labor, the war began to shift. During the Civil War, a group of African Americans met to discuss President Abraham Lincoln’s proposal for Black resettlement in a foreign land. This proposal was immediately shut down due to the burden of fighting an all-out war. Under such trying circumstances, the idea of removing Black citizens through colonization was unthinkable. Although Lincoln did not think colonizing millions of African Americans was possible, he remained convinced that the profound differences between the White and Black races made such resettlement desirable. (Doc.

The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander tries to advance intellectual dialogue regarding mass incarceration in the United States. Alexander does this by carrying out a historical analysis of the process in which the correctional system controls African Americans through intentionally selected, and systematically sanctioned legal limits. In fact, the United States incarceration rate is not at peak by coincidence. Moreover, it is not coincidental that Black men and women make up the majority of this number. According to Alexander, this problem is a consequence of the “New Jim Crow” rules, which use racial stratification to eliminate black individuals in the legal sense. Black people and a small number of the Hispanic community face racial stratified laws when they face the justice system. This paper will support the claims that race is a major factor in the incarceration of black men in the United States, which includes the Jim Crow system, the slave system and the drag war. This process will also involve analyzing of some of the arguments presented within the book.

Reconstruction after the civil war gave African-Americans an extremely limited amount of freedom compared to the equality and freedom that slavery had denied them. Though they were free in theory, in practice, they were not as free at all. At times, they were so restricted that they were basically treated like slaves, even though that isn’t what they were called after reconstruction. Their freedoms in practice were not the humane freedoms they dreamed of; their sphere of freedoms had increased very minimally compared to what they had as slaves. Some of what they had to face now was arguably even more brutal than what they had to face as slaves. After the Civil War, freedom for African-Americans were only “lip deep” (Doc

In various states of the South, the convict lease system operated. The convict lease system allowed prison officials to collect fees from private employers who contracted with the state for work done by prisoners (Friedman, 2007). This was a source of revenue for both penitentiaries and states allowing this practice. Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee had convict lease systems and the brunt of the work by prisoners was on the backs of African American prisoners. In the 1880s and 1890s, 80 to 90 percent of all inmates in Alabama were black (Bair, 2000). During the same two decades, 60 percent of the prison population in Tennessee was black, and it was black convicts who overwhelmingly were leased out to work in coal mines (Bair, 2000).

The American Civil War was ending and African Americans gained freedom, freedom from slavery and to live life as common folk. However, being set ‘free’ was not enough for African Americans to really experience what freedom was really like. Respect and rights of citizenship are by themselves weak in the ability to survive without also obtaining economic power. This paper will examine the progression of African Americans after the Civil War of 1865.

The power that white men possess, particularly in the South, has become so great that black people’s liberty is not guaranteed despite Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Tara Hunter offers the mass incarceration of black men and women as an example of the different methods the South had utilized in order to enslave black people. In the 1860s, public demands to end police brutality towards African-Americans arose as police officers arrested and imprisoned black folks on the basis of getting higher salaries and promotions. According to Hunter, 60% of individuals arrested in Atlanta in the 1880s were black men, despite black men only constituting 44% of the population. 80% of black women were also apprehended, 90% of them were actually sent to jail, but yet again black women only made up half of the female population. This mass incarceration of black people benefitted the state as they were sent to work in chain gangs to perform physical labour as form of “punishment”, which in reality was an alternative to slavery. Therefore, although in legal terms slavery was abolished, to believe that this was the reality being practiced is nonsensical.

Concluding Statement: So in conclusion, African American slaves had hard lives and suffered a lot through slavery and the Civil War.

The Reconstruction era was put into effect by Congress in 1866 and lasted until 1877. Reconstruction was aimed at reorganizing the Southern states after the Civil War. The reconstruction plan granted the means for readmitting the southern states into the Union, and tried to come up with the methods by which whites and blacks could live together in a non-slave society. America's position as a country was established on principles of freedom but those beliefs were weakened by slavery. At the end of the Civil War, many blacks felt that they were entitled to start collecting the benefits that had been denied for so many years. Being able to vote, own land and have a voice in political affairs were all goals that they believed were reachable.

During The Reconstruction era, African Americans faced many obstacles on their way to success. Reconstruction of the United States refers to the remodeling that took place after the civil war. The country was injured in all areas. Its society, economy and physical structure had been In January of 1863; President Abraham Lincoln lifted the chains off thousands of African Americans’ shoulders by releasing the Emancipation Proclamation. Unfortunately, this relief was short-winded. The Emancipation Proclamation stated that all people who were deemed as slaves, were to be set free from slavery and guaranteed to no return to it. At first glance, this new legislative act appeared to provide endless opportunities for newly freed African Americans. Instead, life after the passing of the Emancipation Proclamation conceived more problems for African Americans than those they possessed during the bondage of slavery. After the Emancipation Proclamation was passed, African Americans faced various issues including a lack of opportunities, an unfair starting point and continuous discrimination.

Despite an international treaty that had prohibited taking Africans from their place of origin, many Americans and others involved in the slave trade turned a blind eye to this continuing epidemic of abduction and abuse. This specific tribe’s ordeal represented a major historical movement that helped pave the way to civil rights for all African Americans. This case alone required two landmark trials, which addressed significant disparities present in America at that time. “There has never existed a civilized society in which one segment did not thrive upon the labor of another” (Adams pg 262). When presenting his case to the Supreme Court, Adams recognized the fact that higher classes had often prospered by the exploitation of the lower classes, who, in this particular case, were

Although some economic historians (DeCanio, Higgs; 1975, 1977) have concluded that laws aimed at repressing blacks were largely ineffective because of economic competition amongst blacks, Jennifer Roback of the University of Chicago Law Review asserts that the convict lease system served as a exploitive byproduct of white southerners’ desire to proclaim economic dominance over the African American labor market. The motives of lessees were not solely economically driven - they were racially discriminatory practices with the intent of keeping African-Americans as subservient citizens. Along the way, white southerners realized that they could use large groups of criminalized African Americans to build infrastructure, such as railroads, to mine coal and iron, make turpentine, clear land, and of course, grow cotton. Similarly, state governments realized that they could economically profit while socially benefiting from having African Americans off the streets and back on plantations. Since nearly all convicts were black, few whites cared about what happened to them. And if the supply of convicts fell below the demand, legislators and sheriffs stood ready to increase the supply.

When looking at the social changes in American culture at the turn of the century, we see extraordinary differences in the accepted behaviours and thoughts of American citizens. The century saw a major shift in the way that people lived, with changes in politics, society, culture, economics, and technology. At the beginning of the century, discrimination based on race and sex was significant, but by the end of the 20th century, women had the same legal rights as men and racism had come to be seen as detestable.

Author Douglas Blackmon tells the riveting tale of African Americans post Emancipation Proclamation. Focusing on post emancipation issues, Blackmon tells the stories of black individuals and how they continued to face the same predicaments of their predecessors, without the name slavery attached to their labor. Using sources from African Americans and slave holders, with a combination of newspaper and court recounts, Blackmon sets up various perspectives of ‘slaves’ within this era. Blackmon also brings up issues of the rape of African American woman and the lack of education for black children. These previously untold stories set up explanations of future abuses such as the research conducted within Tuskegee institute and how it is quite similar to the previous inequities faced by their ancestors. Slavery by Another Name tells the harrowing tales of African Americans post slavery and how history truly retold itself for the post-slavery generations.