FROM SLAVERY TO FREEDOM

What was reconstruction?

The name "Reconstruction" was given the period after the civil war. It's also called "Tragic Era".

There where high damages in the southern states raised by the warfare. Politicians organised elections and set up new state governments. Black men were now allowed to vote, but the white Southerners disliked this. Soon, black politicians were elected in state and local government. But most of the Blacks were poor and had no education or political experience, either as voters or as politicians. So there was a great deal of corruption. A few Northern businessmen made high profits on overcharging contracts to repair war damages. Corruption was quite common in American politics.

Sharecroppers

Many of the Blacks who where slaves didn't want to work for wages because it reminded them on slavery and kept them under the direction of whites.

So a new agricultural system called "sharecropping" has been developed. Plantation-owners broke up their estates into small parcels for sharecropping. In return for seed and equipment, the sharecropper would give the landlord a third or a half of his crop. This life was very hard and many Blacks as well as some Whites trapped by poverty.

The Jim Craw Laws/Segregation

Jim Craw was a character in an old song which has been made popular by a white comedian called Daddy Rice. It was also the name of a dance.

In his act, Rice made jokes on black people and on their dialect. Soon, "Jim Craw" came to be another insulting name given to Blacks. But the "Jim Craw Laws" were not serious, they discriminated against Blacks and established segregation. This means that Blacks were kept away from Whites.

Segregation made sure that black Americans continued to be treated as second class citizens.

An important decision by the US-Supreme Court in 1896 declared "Jim Craw Laws" as legal. The law says that facilities used by Blacks and Whites have to be kept separate. Black citizens were stopped from using hotels, restaurants, cinemas and other public amenities. Many states forbade the marriage between Blacks and Whites. Separated schools were built and Blacks also weren't allowed to vote anymore.

The Grandfather Clauses

Only those people whose grandfathers had been allowed to vote, had the right to vote. So the Grandfather Clauses automatically took away the voting right for Blacks. For example, in Louisiana , the effects were dramatically. After introducing the Grandfather Clauses, the number of black voters decreased from 130.344 to 5.320. Once Blacks lost the right vote, it was easy to take away their other rights. This lead to segregation again.