To what extent did presidents aid the pursuit of equality for African Americans between 1865-1968?
Some Presidents aided the pursuit of equality for African Americans, and some did things to go against it as they were for slavery. Civil rights politics in the United States has its roots in the movement to end discrimination against African Americans. Though slavery was abolished and former slaves were officially granted political rights after the Civil War, in most Southern states African Americans continued to be systematically excluded from public life, leading them to become perpetual second-class citizens. The advancement of Civil rights was a very hard and tiring process. All major advancements were due to the president's support and key ideologies which helped the African American community. To assess the validity of the statement I will be discussing the majority of the presidents throughout the time period. Each president did something different. Although some hindered the pursuit of equality in the race for equality. Some presidents aided more than others, helping the black community.
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The beginning of reformation for civil rights began with Abraham Lincoln. He was the first president to introduce changes to the government giving slaves more freedom. The emancipation proclamation said that all southern states were to free slaves at once so that slavery was no longer a thing in America. Yet this wasn't the case. Slaves had nowhere to go, no family, or any other means to do work. They were essentially forced to stay with their past owners. Although they had a thing called sharecropping where the farm owner would give the slaves a bit of land and in exchange they worked for him. Many slaves had large debts and for them to be able to live they had to plant crops in the land they were given. Many people that loaned the former slaves money put high-interest rates on the repayments. It is key to understand that Lincoln wasn't an abolitionist himself. He didn't believe that black people should have the same rights as white people. Above that the civil war was fundamentally a conflict over slavery. However, the way Lincoln viewed it emancipation would have had to be gradual. The most important thing for him was to prevent the southern states from separating and forming their own state. Although the emancipation proclamation didn't free all enslaved slaves. Border states such as Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri didn't have their slaves freed immediately as Lincoln tried to gain the trust of the white people. Now although he did in practice do all that for slaves there were many loopholes for people to go by.
After Lincoln's assassination it was time for a new president, this president was much less pro-slavery. The president was Andrew Johnson, who was against the abolition of slavery. He quickly focused on quickly restoring the southern states to the union. He granted amnesty to most former confederates and allowed the rebel states to elect new governments. These governments soon brought in black codes. The black codes were restrictive laws designed to limit the freedom of African American slaves and ensure the availability of a cheap labor force after slavery was abolished after Lincoln's emancipation proclamation. During Johnsons' time in the white house, he introduced reconstruction. Nearly all the southern Confederate states would bring in their own black codes, in 1865 and 1866. While the codes granted African American rights, they were very limited in their labor and activity. Black people could buy and own property, marry, make contracts, and testify in court. Some stats limited the type of property that black people could have. Johnson did something good for the black community though. He brought in the 14th Amendment in 1868. The 14th Amendment gave all of us citizens equal protection of the law. The amendment also gave all of the people in the USA citizenship no matter if they were a slave or not. The military reconstruction act of 1867 laid out the process for readmitting southern states into the union. The main points of the military reconstruction were to create 5 military districts in the seceded states. Each of these districts was headed by military officials who had the power to appoint and remove state officials. All states were required to ratify the 14th Amendment before readmission. After 1867 large amounts of whites turned to violence in response to the revolutionary changes of radical reconstruction. Groups such as the Ku Klux Klan targeted local leaders, black and white, and other African Americans who challenged and went against white authority.
After Johnson's presidency ended in 1869 Ulysses s Grant became president. Many people see Grant as having actually freed the slaves after Lincoln's emancipation proclamation. Grant passed the 15th Amendment in 1870. The amendment stated that all black men had the right to vote. Above that social and economic segregation were added back to black America's loss of political power. Grant passed the civil rights act of 1875 which disallowed racial discrimination in public areas and facilities such as restaurants and transportation. The act also made it illegal for anyone to deny services such as accommodation on the basis of color and race. The civil rights act gave courts more work to do as cases of discrimination were being brought up and resolved in courts. All the cases were tried in federal courts rather than in state-level courts.
The end of the reconstruction occurred in 1877. During this time Rutherford B Hayes was president. Many argue that he did a lot of bad for African Americans. Things such as the Jim Crow laws, these introduced separation into almost every part of America. Things such as drinking fountains, restaurants, and transportation were being segregated into white and colored categories. Our military was also segregated. Usually, the facilities for blacks were inferior to those of the whites despite the 14th amendment saying 'separate but equal. Not only facilities were segregated but interracial marriage was also prohibited. Both parties that were caught no matter whether white or black, would be punished accordingly. Another thing introduced was the Grandfather clause. A grandfather clause is a provision in which an old rule continues to apply to some existing situations while a new rule will apply to all future cases. Those exempt from the new rule are said to have grandfather rights or acquired rights or to have been grandfathered in.
Woodrow Wilson being the president from 1913-21 did a lot of negative things for African Americans. The introduction of federal segregation in 1913 is one of them. Wilson received General Albert Burleson's plan to segregate the railway mail service. 'Burleson reported that he found it intolerable that white and black employees had to work together and share drinking glasses and washrooms.'1
By the end of 1913 black employees in several federal departments had been separated and or screened off. Work areas, toilets, and lunchrooms were all separated into white and colored sections. Wilson defended his doings by stating that this was in the best interest of black workers. He said that this was only harmful to those who saw that segregation between blacks and whites was a humiliation. Above that the segregation in federal employment was seen as a major pushback on the rights of the black workers, this also seems to push that the official presidential view was for the Jim Crow policies and rules that were set in motion like in the South. Woodrow dealt with a riot in his run as president too. In 1919 the Red Summer began following World War I. The re-birth of the Ku Klux Klan in the South resulted in 64 lynching's in 1918 and 83 in 1919, race riots began to break out in Washington, Knoxville, Tennessee, Longview, Texas, and Arkansas. In the north, the worst riots were witnessed in Chicago and Omaha. The Chicago racial tension was caused by the pressure for adequate housing, the black population had increased from 44000 to more than 100000. The riot's main cause was when a black boy was killed on July 27th. He was swimming in Lake Michigan and drifted into an area reserved for the whites, he was stoned and drowned. When the local police refused to arrest the culprit, crowds began to gather and the riot began. 23 blacks were killed, 537 injured and more than 1000 black families were made homeless.
Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first good president African Americans had in a while. He tried to help the black community as much as he could. He made severe attempts to end lynchings.
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