The Freedmen’s Bureau wanted to make States listen, but as soon as the army left the south every State began to govern themselves, made up their own rules and took no notice whatsoever of the Freedmen’s Bureau.
Another organisation that crept its way into the rule book was called sharecropping. This was the system that southern landowners used to adjust to the changes brought about when slaves had freedom. Slaves were made to work for their original slave masters and the plantations were still owned by the same people as before. Instead of constantly being paid with money the slaves would get given a third of the plantation owner’s crops, but only if enough crops were harvested. This meant that the slaves relied on a good harvest if they wanted to get paid. E.g. If there wasn’t enough rain then the crops wouldn’t grow properly; this would lead to the slaves having no food and without food they would not be able to survive.
Freedom did not seem that different from life before the Civil war for many workers in the south. The only thing different about working on the plantations now was that the slaves didn’t have to make their way home covered in scars and bruised backs.
Many organisations such as these were set up to improve the life of slaves after the Civil war, but when the Ku Klux Klan came along this made everything very different in fact just made things even worse for the Blacks…
The Ku Klux Klan was founded in 1865 and was made up of white extremists who wanted nothing more than to ensure that White people would be totally in control of society at present and in the future. They used methods like Lynching on black people. Lynching means to kill someone by hanging them or violently beating them.
The organisation was banned in 1872 but they didn’t let that stop them. By 1920 it had 5 million members. They would wear white robes with hoods so that members would not be recognised. Atrocious campaigns such as these were extremely hard to terminate because a large number of Judges and policemen were members themselves. Half a million black people moved to the northern states between 1916 and 1920 so that they could leave behind the tremendous discrimination of the south. In order to separate blacks from whites, ghettos quickly developed and more and more housing, schools and churches were built. Although segregation was not legal in many northern states, it was accepted as a part of life!
Separation of Blacks from Whites was enforced by Brutality. Between 1882 and 1903, 2000 Black people were lynched or burned. Southern newspapers published these executions as they were seen as a form of entertainment. Children were also taken to these so called events because it was an important part of their education. One of the headlines in a newspaper read; ‘Hartfield (a black man) will be lynched at 5’o’clock this afternoon!’ people liked to have their photos taken with the victims while they were being lynched. No white person could be convicted for killing a black person.
Because of the violence many Blacks from the south moved away before 1900. Some travelled to new lands in the west, while others tried to find work in Northern cities such as Chicago. Because blacks were cheap to employ, people who had immigrated to America saw them as competitors for jobs. Also products may have bee sold to blacks for larger sums of money although there is no evidence to support this.
Here is a good example of one lynching event that took place; in 1893, a man named Smith was stood for all to see when he had a scorching hot iron stuck down his throat and left for 2 hours when he was set alight. Recordings and photographs were taken of his piercing screams and whines and could be bought weeks after in Texas.
Many southern states felt that emancipation (the freeing of slaves) was forced upon them. Between 1890 and 1910 they limited the rights of black people by passing their own laws which meant that blacks were forced to live separately from whites. These laws were known as The Jim Crow Laws after a line in a plantation song sung by the slaves. Blacks were forced to use separate Hotels, Transport and schools and were treated as second class citizens. In states
where the laws had not changed, violence and intimidation were used to scare black people away from voting and living free lives!
Some aspects of life did improve for the Blacks like The Freedmen’s Bureau and Sharecropping organisations but the general lifestyle of the black people did not improve. They were never once treated equally to white people, their rights were extremely limited and hundreds of thousands were brutally murdered! Looking at the Amendments that were made you would think that life had improved but things following on from them like the Ku Klux Klan prove the total opposite. Unfortunately severe Racism still continues today in many parts of the world!
