Changes after Emancipation

?

May 1866, two horse drawn carriages collided in Memphis Tennessee. 

The black man driving one of the carriages was arrested and black war veterans defended him. Three days of race riots with Irish police and firemen attacking the South Memphis shantytown where former black soldiers lived followed with 46 black people dead and 5 women ***** as a consequence. Houses, schools, and churches had been robbed or burned as a result.

August 1866, New Orleans, a procession of black soldiers was led to support elected delegates who would draw constitution for black suffrage. 34 blacks killed, 100 injure.d 

The KKK was supportive of plantation owners, the Democratic Party, and all those opposing equality of slaves. It attacked anybody suspected of supporting economic independence of black people, such as Jack Dupree of Monroe County, Mississippi - his throat cut and disembowelled in front of his wife. 

The KKK operated largely in the plantation belt in the South. They would leave behind a burning cross. Black people would flee to forests to evade attacks.

Nathan Forrest disassociated himself as leader of the KKK when it wouldn't disband. 

Many white people supported the KKK, White Brotherhood, and Knights of the White Camelia due to fear of black domination and cheap labour of black people, but doctors, dentists, and clergymen, wealthy men, supported the movement. 

1870-1 Enforcement Acts by Congress - first act prevented intimidation to African American voters, secnd authorised federal supervision of elections, third (Ku Klux Klan Act), dealt with terrorism and allowed federal courts to intervene if states didn't when black people were prevented right to vote. 1872 - KKK surpressed.

With new freedom, black people were able to travel., families were reunited, and informal plantation marriages were legalised so by 1870 80% of African American families were strong units.

Many black people moved West and took advantage of the Homestead Act, or benefitted from the Southern Homestead Act (1866- 44 million acres of land in 5 southern states for former slaves, 4000 claimed land but it was poor and lack of resources to develop it).

Reform of land ownership was needed in the South, most couldn't afford land. Few established efficient working farms, lacking capital to buy seed, tools, and equipment. 1865-66 many former…

Comments

No comments have yet been made