Free
During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863.
It freed enslaved persons in the southern states that were still fighting. In 1865, the 13th Amendment to the Constitution was passed. It ended slavery in the rest of the country. The 14th Amendment in 1868 gave citizenship to African Americans. And the 15th Amendment in 1870 gave African American men the right to vote. The Civil Rights Act of 1875 said African Americans could not be kept out of public places like hotels and theaters. For a while, these laws helped. But they were ignored more and more. Segregation became the unwritten law of the land.
▲ How did owners explain their inhuman treatment of enslaved persons? They told themselves slaves were not as human as they were. The idea of white supremacy wasn’t real in any way. But it became the reason for segregation after the Civil War.
The time after the Civil War is called Reconstruction. Federal troops took over the South to protect the rights of freed enslaved persons. From Reconstruction until 1901, things got better. Black voters and their supporters sent 22 African Americans to the U.S. Congress. Some had successful businesses and farms. But the government gave them no financial help. Without that, most couldn’t make a good living. Here are freed slaves studying at a Freedman’s School in Charleston, South Carolina. ▼
◀ By 1877, U.S. government troops had left the South. After that, former slave owners ruled free African Americans. Southern states passed what became known as Jim Crow laws. These laws supported segregation. They took away African Americans’ right to vote. The name “Jim Crow” probably came from a song-and-dance routine done by a white singer in black face paint. It made fun of African Americans.
After the Civil War, mobs of white supremacists attacked African Americans. Some lied about African Americans committing crimes and lynched, or killed, them. Racial terrorist groups still exist. One is the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan was behind killings and bombings during the civil rights era. ▶
▲ Two famous African American leaders had very different ideas about segregation. Booker T. Washington (1856–1915), above left, was born into slavery. He started Tuskegee University in Alabama. He thought African Americans should go along with segregation. They should make the best of their place in society. W.E.B. DuBois (1868–1963), above right, was born in the North. He thought African Americans should demand equality in all parts of life. He was one of the people who formed the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. That was in 1909. The NAACP was one of the first civil rights organizations.
▲ Over the years, many African Americans went North to find work. Most ended up in crowded city neighborhoods. They had low-paying jobs and no way to get ahead. Segregation wasn’t the law in the North, but it was common. Whites who bought homes were sometimes made to promise they would not resell their homes to blacks. Segregated housing meant that churches, schools, and other places were also separate. Sometimes African Americans were not allowed to have certain jobs. They also weren’t let into restaurants and other public places.
