HIS 204: Week 5 - Final Paper: The history of African-Americans from 1865 to present

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The history of African-Americans from 1865 to present

Introduction:

The African-Americans history has been a contradiction of incredible triumph in the face of

tremendous human adversity. This thesis will present a detailed examination of the black

experience in America from 1865 till present times in light of that contradiction to provide an

understanding of the role of black people have played in the history of the nation and an

assessment of why they were excluded from the promise of American democracy until the

relatively recent past. This thesis will trace the African American historical experience starting

from the 1860s until the recent times. This paper analyses the various economic, political, social

and cultural methods African-Americans have employed to survive in an overwhelmingly hostile

environment and describe how the issue of black slavery came to be central to the politics of the

new nation.

The Civil War era

By the end of the 1850s, North feared complete control of the country by slaveholding means,

whites in the South believed that the North was determined to destroy its way of life. While the

White Southerners had been embittered by Northern defiance of the 1850 federal fugitive slave

act and had been alarmed in 1859 by the raid at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, led by the white

abolitionist John Brown. After Lincoln was elected president in 1860 on the antislavery platform

of the new Republican Party the Southern states seceded from the Union and formed the

Confederate States of America.

The Civil War, that ultimately liberated the country’s slaves, began in 1861. Preservation of the

Union and not the abolition of slavery was the initial objective of President Lincoln. Lincoln

initially believed in gradual emancipation and with the federal government compensating the

slaveholders for the loss of their property. In September 1862 he issued the Emancipation

Proclamation declaring that all slaves residing in states in rebellion against the United States as of

January 1, 1863, were to be free. Thus the Civil War became a war to end slavery with all its

effects.

African American leaders such as author William Wells Brown, physician and author Martin R.

Delany, and Douglass vigorously recruited blacks into the Union army. By the end of the Civil

War more than 186,000 African American men were in the Union armed forces. They performed

heroically despite discrimination in pay, rations, equipment, and assignments as well as the

unrelenting hostility of the Confederate troops. Slaves served as a labor force for the Confederacy,

but thousands of them dropped their tools and escaped to the Union lines.

The Reconstruction

As a result of the Union victory in the Civil War and the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment

to the Constitution (1865), nearly four million slaves were freed. The Fourteenth Amendment

(1868) granted African Americans citizenship, and the Fifteenth Amendment (1870) guaranteed

their right to vote. Yet the Reconstruction period (1865–77) was one of disappointment and

frustration for African Americans as these new provisions of the Constitution were often ignored,

specifically in the South.

During this period the African Americans wielded political power in the South for the first time.

Their leaders were largely lawyers, clergymen, and teachers who had been educated in the North

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The history of African-Americans from 1865 to present Introduction: The African-Americans history has been a contradiction of incredible triumph in the face of tremendous human adversity. This thesis will present a detailed examination of the black experience in America from 1865 till present times in light of that contradiction to provide an understanding of the role of black people have played in the history of the nation and an assessment of why they were excluded from the promise of American democracy until the relatively recent past. This thesis will trace the African American historical experience starting from the 1860s until the recent times. This paper analyses the various economic, political, social and cultural methods African-Americans have employed to survive in an overwhelmingly hostile environment and describe how the issue of black slavery came to be central to the politics of the new nation. The Civil War era By the end of the 1850s, North feared complete control of the country by slaveholding means, whites in the South believed that the North was determined to destroy its way of life. While the White Southerners had been embittered by Northern defiance of the 1850 federal fugitive slave act and had been alarmed in 1859 by the raid at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, led by the white abolitionist John Brown. After Lincoln was elected president in 1860 on the antislavery platform of the new Republ ...
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