The South Reacts

The North Acts(Review)

• 13th Amendment– Officially abolished and prohibited slavery and involuntary servitude.

• Freedmen’s Bureau– Offered assistance to freed slaves.– Provided clothing, medical aid, and education.

• Civil Rights Act of 1866– Gave African Americans citizenship and forbade states from passing black

codes (discriminatory laws) that restricted African Americans’ lives.• 14th Amendment

– Made “all persons born or naturalized in the United States” citizens of the country.

• Provided all people with equal protection under the law.• Could not deprive people of life, liberty, and property.

• 15th Amendment– No one can be kept from voting based on “race, color, or previous condition of

servitude.”

The South Reacts

• Black Codes• Intimidation

–Ku Klux Klan• Voting Restrictions

–Literacy Tests–Poll Tax–Grandfather Clause

Black Codes

• “Black Codes" were legal statutes and constitutional amendments enacted by the ex-Confederate states following the Civil War that sought to restrict the liberties of newly freed slaves, ensure a supply of inexpensive agricultural labor, and maintain white dominated hierarchy.

Black Codes• While each ex-Confederate state enacted its own set of

Black Codes, all of them shared certain features. – First: They defined the term "person of color." – Second: They prevented blacks from voting, holding office,

or serving on juries.– Third: They prevented blacks from serving in state militias.– Fourth: They mandated for poor, unemployed persons

(usually blacks) be arrested for vagrancy or bound as apprentices.

– Fifth: They mandated and regulated labor contracts between whites and free blacks.

– Sixth: They prohibited interracial marriages between whites and blacks.

Example of a Black Code

SEC. 5. Be it further enacted, That no negro or mulatto shall be admitted to attend any public school in this state, except such schools as may be established exclusively for colored persons.

Example of a Black Code

1. SEC. I. The General Assembly of the Georgia do enact, That all negroes, mulattoes, mestizoes, and their descendants, having one-eighth negro, or African blood, in their veins, shall be known in this State as “persons of color.”

Example of a Black Code

SECTION 2. All freedmen, free negroes and mulattoes in this State, over the age of eighteen years, found on the second Monday in January, 1866, or thereafter, with no lawful employment or business, or found unlawful assembling themselves together, either in the day or night time, shall be deemed vagrants, and on conviction thereof shall be fined in a sum not exceeding, in the case of a freedman, free negro or mulatto, fifty dollars, and imprisonment at the discretion of the court.

The Beginning of the Ku Klux Klan• In December 1865, eight months after the South’s surrender, a

group of six young men living in the village of Pulaski near Nashville, Tennessee decided to relieve their boredom by organizing a social club. All were veterans of the Confederate Army and some had attended college where fraternities with three-letter, Greek-based names were popular. In mock-imitation, they came up with the title Ku Klux Klan for their group. Their meetings would be secret and devoted to elaborate ceremonies. Members would disguise themselves with a costume made up of a sheet to cover their bodies, fanciful masks to hide their faces and pointed headgear that heightened their stature. Their leader would be known as the Grand Cyclops. Although their motives may have been innocent, the appearance of these white-sheeted, horse-mounted apparitions on the town’s darkened streets triggered a panic-driven flight for safety by the community’s recently freed slaves. Soon, terrorizing Blacks became a prime sport and the transition of the KKK from an innocuous social club to a ruthless vigilance committee began.

Ku Klux Klan

• Began to preach a doctrine of white supremacy in reaction to the appearance of freed blacks in government and other parts of Southern society.

• Dressed in white sheets or robes and wore masks to disguise their identities.

• They staged silent marches and threatening midnight horseback rides, leading untutored former slaves to believe that the ghosts of the Confederate dead had risen to reclaim their land. In many areas threats gave way to beatings, whippings, and lynching.

Ku Klux Klan• 1867: National Convention held in Nashville

– Became the “Invisible Empire of the South.”– Elected General Nathan Bedford Forrest as head.

• Under his leadership the Klan grew quickly.

• Example of Intimidation:– 1868 election: Whites patrolled highways where they

warned blacks if they did not vote Democratic they would be killed.

– Klan activity had reduced black voter turnout by 20 percent (compared to the previous year).

Action Against the KlanRadical Republicans in Congress urged President Grant to take action against the Ku Klux Klan. In 1870 an investigation into the organization and the following year a Grand Jury reported that: "There has existed since 1868, in many counties of the state, an organization known as the Ku Klux Klan, or Invisible Empire of the South, which embraces in its membership a large proportion of the white population of every profession and class. The Klan has a constitution and bylaws, which provides, among other things, that each member shall furnish himself with a pistol, a Ku Klux gown and a signal instrument. The operations of the Klan are executed in the night and are invariably directed against members of the Republican Party. The Klan is inflicting summary vengeance on the colored citizens by breaking into their houses at the dead of night, dragging them from their beds, torturing them in the most inhuman manner, and in many instances murdering."

Congress passed the Ku Klux Act and it became law on 20th April, 1871. This gave the president the power to intervene in troubled states with the authority to suspend the writ of habeas corpus in countries where disturbances occurred. However, because its objective of white supremacy in the South had been achieved, the organization practically disappeared.

Does the KKK Still Exist?

http://www.life.com/image/85938998/in-gallery/25151

Literacy Tests• Prior to passage of the federal Voting Rights

Act in 1965, Southern states had elaborate voter registration procedures.– Purpose: Deny the vote to African Americans. In

the South, this process was often called the "literacy test." But, it was much more than a simple test, it was an entire complex system devoted to denying African-Americans the right to vote.

• Problem: Kept some whites from voting.

Poll Tax• The poll tax was used in the South during and

after Reconstruction as a means of getting around the 14th Amendment and denying civil rights to blacks.

• Not until the adoption of the 24th Amendment that poll taxes were made illegal as a prerequisite for voting in federal elections.

• Problem: Often kept poor whites from voting.

Grandfather Clause• Since literacy tests and the poll tax could

impact the number of poor whites voting, Southern legislatures introduced the “grandfather clause," which exempted voters from the restrictions if their grandfathers had voted. This clearly eliminated the blacks.

• It was not until 1915 that the grandfather clauses were voided by the Supreme Court as a violation of the 15th Amendment.