Post-Civil War Life For African-Americans

By: Troy Nickens

After The Civil War

• Reconstruction of The South between 1865 and 1870.

• The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments.• Rise of Ku Klux Klan.• Reconstruction ultimately failed due to

creation of the “Black Codes”.• Restoration of White Supremacy in The South.

“Black Codes”• Created to limit the opportunities of free blacks

in the south.• Ensured availability as a work force since slavery

was abolished.• In some southern states African-Americans were

only permitted to work as domestic servants or in agriculture.

• Black Codes soon turned into Jim Crow Laws.• Boy Willie still worked on Sutter’s land after

slavery was abolished.

Life In The South

• Racism had a very strong influence in southern states.

• Jim Crow Laws• Segregation • Hate Crimes

Life In The North

• Mass migration of African-Americans to The North created racial tension in northern cities such as New York.

• New Deal programs presented new opportunities for African-Americans in The North.

• Enabled African-American artists to find word during the depression.

The Great Migration: African-American Exodus

• Leave southern racism to forge a new beginning in the North.

• Between 1915 and 1970, estimated 6 million African-Americans moved from The South to The North, Midwest, and West.

• During Early 1900s New York, Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland saw about 40 percent increase in African-American Population.

• Harlem, New York became a center for African-American Culture.

Black Migration Trends

Black Population Trends

1890s 1960s

Southern 90.3% 10%

Rural 90% 5%

Northern 9.7% 90%

Urban 10% 95%

Booker T. Washington

• Believed that Education was the key to achieving equality.

• Was tolerant of segregation.• Founded Tuskegee Institute in the black belt

of Alabama.• Faced black and white opposition when the

Niagara Movement and NAACP groups demanded civil rights and protested against white aggression.

W.E.B. Du Bois

• Demanded full equality without compromise• One of the co-founders of the NAACP• One of the co-founders of the Niagara

Movement• Opposed Booker T. Washington’s Atlanta

Compromise.• Spoke against racism in the military, in

education, and white aggression.

Marcus Garvey

• Believed that all African-Americans should return to their ancestral land (Africa).

• Founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA)

Bibliography • http://mgagnon.myweb.uga.edu/students/3090/04SP3090-Briggs.htm

• http://us.history.wisc.edu/hist102/lectures/lecture09.html

• http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/reconstruction/introduction.html

• http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/washington/bio.html

• http://www.history.rochester.edu/class/douglass/part5.html

• http://www.biography.com/people/marcus-garvey-9307319

• http://www.biography.com/people/web-du-bois-9279924