How did the southern states deny equality to African Americans even after Emancipation

by temimwale (student)

How did the southern states deny equality to African Americans even after the Emancipation Proclamation? (30 Marks)

The Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1st 1863, during the American Civil War using his war powers. This was not a law passed by Congress which evidently highlights how its credibility would be hindered in the coming years by all those pro-slavery. It proclaimed the freedom of slaves in ten of the eleven states then in rebellion. The Proclamation immediately freed 50,000 slaves, with nearly all the rest freed as Union armies advanced. The Proclamation did not compensate the owners, did not itself outlaw slavery, and did not make the ex-slaves/ freedmen, American citizens. This in itself highlights how even after Emancipation, African-Americans were in no way considered to be on equal-footing to their White American counterparts.

The 13th Amendment to the US Constitution (1865) confirmed the illegality of slavery and was to be seen to reconcile the proclamation which Republicans thought may have been viewed as a temporary war measure. Andrew Johnson succeeded Lincoln after his assassination and made it compulsory for confederate states to agree to the ratification of the thirteenth amendment in order to receive amnesty, a pardon and a place back in the union. However in practice Johnson failed to enforce this requirement. In addition to this Black Codes were introduced by state legislature which intended to limit or avoid the extension of voting rights to freed slaves. The codes also withheld African Americans the right serve on a jury, give evidence against a white person, carry arms and marry a white person, all of which demonstrate the denial of equality to African American’s by the southern states.

The Republicans in congress counteracted the Black Codes with the 14th Amendment to the constitution which granted all citizens protection of the law without discrimination (however only one southern state ratified this amendment – Tennessee). Despite this in practise the Fourteenth Amendment was never adhered to or enforced in the way it was intended to be. Instead the southern states found loopholes and were able to deny African Americans of their social equality through various state legislations. The amendment became practically ineffective as proven by the ‘slaughter house’ decision of 1873, which demonstrated that one’s civil rights may be protected in a national capacity, but this however did not constitute to the rights being protected by the state as state citizenship granted rights were different. This idea was then reinforced and settled with the 1896 Plessey Vs. Ferguson Supreme Court ruling which meant upholding the constitutionality of state laws requiring racial segregation in public facilities under the doctrine of ‘Separate but Equal’. The 14th amendment proved futile in the protection of rights against a racist state authority, which was highlighted when the Jim Crow laws were ratified in southern states, segregating all aspects of life from education, to public services to transport as a result of the Plessey vs. Ferguson case, marking the end of the reconstruction period.

This is a preview of the whole essay

The 15th Amendment of the U.S Constitution granted franchise to African Americans as a part of the Reconstruction Settlement, both in the northern and southern states. Despite legally having suffrage the Southern states found a variety of ways to disenfranchise African Americans and due to the early realisation that loopholes could be formed in the amendment, the Southern States posed no opposition in ratifying it. Some states introduced a poll-tax which would have to be paid for a period of time before voting was applicable; a tax that the majority of African Americans wouldn’t be able to afford. Voting qualifications such as literacy tests were used as another means to disenfranchise African-Americans. Louisiana introduced the ‘grandfather clause’ which stated that you could only vote if your ancestors could vote, which reconciled the issue of poor whites not being able to vote (those who like African Americans couldn’t pay the tax or pass the tests were able to vote in this way). In Alabama a ‘test of good character’ was enforced and elsewhere and ‘8 box ballot’ which both demonstrate the extent to which the Fifteenth Amendment could be overcome. These means to deny political equality proved substantial in how the Southern States denied Equality as a whole.

Economic equality was also denied to African Americans. Lincoln intended to provide African Americans with the basic necessities he believed would enable them to progress economically, a concept he named ’40 Acres and a Mule’ concept. This eventually took the shape of The Homestead (1862) and Southern Homestead Act (1866). In practise however this didn’t work and was substituted with ‘Share-cropping’. Share-cropping was the renting of land from White landlords and entering into agreements with local businessmen (who would provide African-Americans with tools and seeds as a loan). In return, African Americans were expected to give between one half to two thirds of their harvest up as payment. Often African Americans couldn’t afford to repay the landlords or merchants and thus remained trapped on this land by debt – which can be seen as another unofficial form of slavery. In addition to this, these African Americans often lived in the same place they had as slaves and did the same work they had done as slaves and although they were now freedmen, the term and concept of ‘free’ in this instance is debatable. Share-cropping enabled the Southern States to deny economic equality to African Americans.

In addition to this violence was played a substantial role in the denial of equality to African Americans. The Ku Klux Klan were a vigilante group that was formed by the ex confederate generals who aimed to continue the civil war via other means. Disagreeing completely with the emancipation of the slaves and the abolition of slavery the KKK wanted to suppress African-Americans by lowering their morale and intimidating them into accepting their role as inferior to whites. After the reconstruction period ended (1896) with the Plessey Vs. Ferguson case confirming the normalisation of segregation, lynching’s were extremely common in the Southern States. They were carried out by everyday men and men of high authority alike. The impunity of whites was extremely demeaning for African-Americans because as to this day, not one conviction has ever been followed through for the thousands of lynchings that occurred in the early twentieth century. Lynching desensitised society and they even went as far as providing entertainment to the white population of the South. Whole families would watch and encourage the atrocities that took place against African Americans in the form of lynching, which were often photographed, made into postcards and sold. The crimes these lynch victims had supposedly committed were often fabricated and include most commonly stories of rape (against white women), this highlights the use of lynching, not to serve as a form of punishment, but to act as random acts of intimidation and terror against African-Americans. Due to the fact that the majority of African-Americans knew the crimes they were supposedly committing were falsified, their fear increased as they knew anyone could be accused with little to no evidence against them, which further depleted their belief in the justice system.

In Summary, though the Emancipation Proclamation can be seen as a turning point in the status of African Americans, it did not prevent the Southern States from finding a variety of ways to deny them social, political and economic equality. Yet violence against AAs was arguably the aspect that hindered their progress in reaching equality the most. This is because it prevented African Americans from actually attempting to gain their equality in other ways. The maxim ‘A little lynching goes a long way’ highlights the ‘positive outcomes’ of lynching a few African Americans, which was seen by the Southern States as keeping all of them ‘in their place’. Due to the fact that AAs were too scared and had such low self esteem, it took a long time before they could actually channel the anger they felt at the crimes carried out against their people, into attempting to achieve equality. The 1955 lynching of Emmitt Till proved vital in actual provoking enough outrage and passion that could be positively distributed into the civil rights movement. Till’s murders were not convicted, despite confessing to the crime and selling their story for $4000 after the trial had ended. This in itself just cements the idea that violence against African-Americans, even in the latest stages of state segregation, proved to be arguably the greatest of the injustices against them. Indeed, the violence denied African-Americans of their most important right: the right to life, liberty and security of person (Article 3, UNDHR).

Temi Mwale 12N