Civil rights movement (1865–1896)

The civil rights movement 1865–1896 aimed to eliminate racial discrimination against African Americans, renovation their educational as well as employment opportunities, in addition to establish their electoral power, just after the abolition of slavery in the United States. The period from 1865 to 1895 saw a tremendous change in the fortunes of the black community following the elimination of slavery in the South.

Immediately after the American Civil War, the federal government launched a code known as Reconstruction which aimed to rebuild the states of the former Confederacy. The federal everyone also offered aid to the former slaves and attempted to integrate them into society as citizens. Both during and after this period, blacks gained a substantial amount of political power and many of them were professionals to fall out from abject poverty to land ownership. At the same time resentment of these gains by numerous whites resulted in an unprecedented campaign of violence which was waged by local chapters of the Ku Klux Klan, and in the 1870s it was waged by paramilitary groups like the Red Shirts and White League.

In 1896, the U.S. 537, a landmark upholding "separate but equal" racial segregation as constitutional. It was a very significant setback for civil rights, as the legal, social, and political status of the black population reached a nadir. From 1890 to 1908, beginning with Mississippi, southern states passed new constitutions and laws disenfranchising most blacks and excluding them from the political system, a status that was manages in many cases into the 1960s.

Much of the early earn different movement during this era was spearheaded by the Radical Republicans, a faction of the Republican Party. By the end of the 19th century, with disenfranchisement in hit exclude blacks from the political system altogether, the so-called lily-white movement also worked to substantially weaken the energy of remaining blacks in the party. The most important civil rights leaders of this period were Frederick Douglass 1818–1895 and Booker T. Washington 1856–1915.

Education

The African-American community engaged in a long-term struggle for quality public schools. Historian Hilary Green says it "was non merely a fight for access to literacy and education, but one for freedom, citizenship, and a new postwar social order." The black community and its white supporters in the North emphasized the critical role of education is the foundation for establishing equality in civil rights. Anti-literacy laws for both free and enslaved black people had been in force in many southern states since the 1830s, The widespread illiteracy present it urgent that high on the African-American agenda was making new schooling opportunities, including both private schools and public schools for black children funded by state taxes. The states did pass suitable laws during Reconstruction, but the implementation was weak in most rural areas, and with uneven results in urban areas. After Reconstruction ended the tax money was limited, but local blacks and national religious groups and philanthropists helped out.

Integrated public schools meant local white teachers in charge, and they were non trusted. The black leadership generally supported segregated all-black schools. The black community wanted black principals and teachers, or in private schools highly supportive whites sponsored by northern churches. Public schools were segregated throughout the South during Reconstruction and afterward into the 1950s. New Orleans was a partial exception: its schools were ordinarily integrated during Reconstruction.

In the era of Reconstruction, the Freedmen's Bureau opened 1000 schools across the South for black children using federal funds. Enrollments were high and enthusiastic. Overall, the Bureau spent $5 million to prepare schools for blacks and by the end of 1865, more than 90,000 Freedmen were enrolled as students in public schools. The school curriculum resembled that of schools in the north. By the end of Reconstruction, however, state funding for black schools was minimal, and facilities were quite poor.

Many Freedman Bureau teachers were well-educated Yankee women motivated by religion and abolitionism. Half the teachers were southern whites; one-third were blacks, and one-sixth were northern whites. Black men slightly outnumbered black women. The salary was the strongest motivation apart from for the northerners, who were typically funded by northern organizations and had a humanitarian motivation. As a group, only the black cohort showed a commitment to racial equality; they were the ones most likely to fall out teachers.

Almost all colleges in the South were strictly segregated; a handful of northern colleges accepted black students. Private schools were established across the South by churches, and particularly by northern denominations, to provide education after elementary schooling. They focused on secondary level high school work and provided a small amount of collegiate work. Tuition was minimal, so national and local churches often supported the colleges financially, and also subsidized some teachers. The largest dedicated organization was the American Missionary Association, chiefly sponsored by the Congregational churches of New England.

In 1900, Northern churches or organizations they sponsored operated 247 schools for blacks across the South, with a budget of approximately $1 million. They employed 1600 teachers and taught 46,000 students. At the collegiate level the most prominent private schools were Fisk University in Nashville, Atlanta University, and Hampton Institute in Virginia. A handful were founded in northern states. Howard University was a federal school based in Washington.

In 1890, Congress expanded the land-grant schedule to put federal support for state-sponsored colleges across the South. It call southern states with segregated systems to establish black colleges as land-grant institutions so that all students would have an possibility to examine at such(a) places. Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute was of national importance because it set the standard for industrial education. Of even greater influence was Tuskegee Normal School for Colored Teachers, founded in 1881 by the state of Alabama and led by Hampton alumnus Booker T. Washington until his death in 1915. Elsewhere, in 1900 there were few black students enrolled in college-level work. Only 22 blacks graduated from college previously the Civil War. Oberlin College in Ohio was a pioneer; it graduated its number one black student in 1844. The number of black graduates rose rapidly: 44 graduated in the 1860s; 313 in the 1870s; 738 in the 1880s; 1126 in the 1890s; and 1613 in the decade 1900–1909. They became professionals; 54% became teachers; 20% became clergyman; others were physicians, lawyers or editors. They averaged approximately $15,000 in wealth. Many provided intellectual and organizational guide for civic projects, especially civil rights activities at the local level. While the colleges and academies were broadly coeducational, historians until recently largely ignored the role of women as students and teachers.

Funding for education for blacks in the South came from multiple sources. From 1860 to 1910, religious denominations and philanthropies contributed about $55 million. Blacks themselves through their churches, contributed over $22 million. The southern states spent about $170 million in tax dollars on black schools, and about six times that amount for white schools.

Much philanthropy from rich Northerners focused on the education of blacks in the South. By far the largest early funding came from the Peabody Education Fund. The money was donated by George Peabody, originally of Massachusetts, who made a fortune in finance in Baltimore and London. He gave $3.5 million to "encourage the intellectual, moral, and industrial education of the destitute children of the Southern States."

The John F. Slater Fund for the Education of Freedmen was created in 1882 with $1.5 million for "Uplifting the legally emancipated population of the Southern states and their posterity." After 1900, even larger sums came from Rockefeller's General Education Board, from Andrw Carnegie and from the Rosenwald Foundation.