Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
African Americans who fought during the Civil War had high hopes of gaining some form of
meaningful citizenship. Clearly the outcomes fell well short of their expectations, and
by that measure, the Reconstruction was an abysmal a failure. On the other hand, historian
Howard Zinn makes a very poignant observation with regard to the Reconstruction. His best
known work, A People's History of the United States, offers a very critical view on the
Reconstruction. In it, he notes that the Reconstruction failed to make citizens of African Americans,
failed to politically empower African-Americans, and in a sense even failed to end a system
of involuntary servitude. He makes clear that by the compromise of 1877, white supremacy
was is firmly entrenched in the north and the south as it was prior to the Civil War.
But, if you read to send Zinn carefully you'll notice that while he acknowledges all of this,
he also considers the Reconstruction to be a brilliant success. He does so by arguing
that the Reconstruction was never intended to bring about any meaningful change for African
Americans. Zinn notes that, as we saw in Episode 8, what emerges in the South after the Civil
War is ongoing control of African American labor in slave like conditions that carries
none of the risks of slave rebellion and runaways. In short, we have a system with all of the
economic exploitation of slavery still intact -- generating more than half of the country's
wealth -- but none of the liabilities that go along with it.
Other historians, like Eric Foner, refer to the Reconstruction as an "Unfinished Revolution."
A revolution in which America started down the road toward making America be America
for all of its citizens, but fell short before it reached its goal. He argues that the revolution
would be made real by future generations of Americans, of a variety of hues. So, was the
Reconstruction a success? To quote "The Oracle" from The Matrix, you'll just have to make
up your own damned mind. Let's hear some the voices of African Americans
themselves articulating their own agenda for the reconstruction.
First, I have an excerpt from Booker T. Washington's book, Up From Slavery. Born a slave, he learned
of his emancipation when he was a child 7 or 8 years of age. This excerpt is his reflection
written some years later of that moment when he was told that he was no longer a slave.
He writes: “For some minutes there was great rejoicing,
and thanksgiving, and wild scenes of ecstasy. … I noticed that by the time they returned
to their cabins there was a change in their feelings. The great responsibility of being
free, of having charge of themselves, of having to think and plan for themselves and their
children, seemed to take possession of them. … To some it seemed that, now that they
were in actual possession of it, freedom was a more serious thing than they had expected
to find it. Some of the slaves were seventy or eighty years old; their best days were
gone. They had no strength with which to earn a living in a strange place and among strange
people… To this class the problem seemed especially hard.”
Another letter is a freedman’s responds to his former master who has asked the former
slave to return to work in Tennessee. The response, which I will try to read with a
straight face reads in part as follows: To my old Master, Colonel P. H. Anderson,
Big Spring, Tennessee. Sir. I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten
Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again… Although you shot
at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you
are still living. … I am doing tolerably well here. I get twenty-five dollars a month,
with victuals and clothing … Now if you will write and say what wages you will give
me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again.
As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score,
as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost-Marshal-General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says
she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you were disposed to treat us justly
and kindly; and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our
wages for the time we served you. … I served you faithfully for thirty-two years, and Mandy
twenty years. At twenty-five dollars a month for me, and two dollars a week for Mandy,
our earnings would amount to eleven thousand six hundred and eighty dollars. Add to this
the interest for the time our wages have been kept back … If you fail to pay us for faithful
labors in the past, we can have little faith in your promises in the future. … You will
also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood.
The great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form
virtuous habits. Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you
when you were shooting at me. From your old servant, Jourdon Anderson
As we can see from both of the previous of these firsthand accounts, education was a
key concern for reconstruction era blacks. Additionally, institutions for community building
were often cited as some of the immediate goals.
By the compromise of 1877 and the end of Reconstruction, white supremacy was firmly institutionalized
in the north and the south. The compromise of 1877 came about as a result of a dispute
in the electoral college over the presidential election of 1876. The conflict was largely
centered around the southern state of Florida, which had awarded its electoral votes to the
Democrat Samuel Tilden. Recall that by the 14th amendment interfering with one's citizenship
and voting rights would result in forfeiture of electoral votes. When it became known that
African American voters had been largely disenfranchised through intimidation and various other tactics
those electoral votes were disputed by the Republican Party. A compromise was reached
in 1877 that awarded the electoral votes to Rutherford B. Hayes in exchange for withdrawing
union troops from the occupied south and effectively ending the Reconstruction.
With that, Southern redemption was underway. There was an effort to return or "redeem"
the South to what was, in the southern imagination, a state of social harmony that existed prior
to the Civil War and northern interference. It was the South in which all whites owned
all blacks. A south in which whites were socially superior and blacks knew their place. It was,
in fact, a South in which blacks were perfectly content and happy being slaves. It was a south
that never existed, and that's the gag. It was a joke that flew in the face of the obvious
reality that the South throughout the period of slavery lived in constant fear of slave
rebellion which was exactly the reason why such harsh slave codes had to be imposed.
It was a joke on poor whites because they became part of an effort to redeem a south
in which only about a quarter of southern families owned slaves. The joke here is that
without realizing it racism has duped poor whites into supporting and defending their
own exploitation. It's absolutely astounding to see the extent to which poor whites allow
racism to kick them in the teeth. You'll see very early on in the labor movement, for example,
that the AFL initially would not allow black membership. It's almost inconceivable how
foolish that is. Black folks are people of the same or similar class and they were strategically
called in as strikebreakers when the union goes on strike. Yet these poor white Unionists
are going to vent their rage on the very black folks who they've refused to let into the
union instead of the employer who is exploiting them.