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Class Date: October 21st
Location: Your couch! See your weekly e-mail for Zoom link!
Look for the Helpers
Look for the Helpers
This week we continue to highlight strong women advocating for their communities. We will review the myriad of ways those in power worked to continue to keep African Americans suppressed, especially after the Civil War. He is a brief overview of the events of the time:
January 16, 1865 - Forty Acres and a Mule
General William Tecumseh Sherman issued Field Order No. 15 to redistribute roughly 400,00 acres of confiscated land in Lowcountry Georgia and South Carolina. He divided the land into 40 acre plots for newly freed Black families and white southern unionists. After the war, President Andrew Johnson returned most of the last to former white slave owners.
1866 - Civil Rights Act
The first federal law recognizing the definition of citizenship and extending equal protection to all citizens. The main goal of the Act was to protect civil rights for recently freed Black people living in the United States in the wake of the Civil War. President Andrew Johnson vetoed the act, but a ⅔ majority in each chamber overrode the veto to pass the Act. While the act made it illegal to discriminate against Black citizens, enforcement has historically been difficult to secure.
1866 - White mob attacks Louisiana Constitutional Convention
Frustrated that the Louisiana Constitution did not extend voting rights to Black people, Progressive Republicans, with a mix of Black and white men, convened a convention to discuss reform. After the meeting, they met a group of Black marchers with a band. An armed group of whites set on the group, ultimately killing approximately 50 people, almost all of them Black.
1868 - Treaty of Fort Laramie
In the spring of 1868, there was a conference held at Fort Laramie, which is located in present day Wyoming. The treaty negotiated was intended to help end the skirmishes that had been occurring across the west as white settlers encroached on Native lands. The treaty was between the U.S. government and the Sioux nation, in which the Sioux agreed to settle in the Black Hills, a sacred site. To read more about this, click here:
1869 - John Willis Menard is the first Black man elected to Congress, but he is never seated
John Willis Menard ran in a special election to succeed the late James Mann, who represented New Orleans in the House of Representatives. Though Menard received 64% of the vote, his opponent, Caleb Hunt, contested the election. The House deemed that neither candidate was qualified and left the seat vacant for the remainder of the session.
1870 - Hiram Revels Rhodes became the first Black Senator in the United States
Elected by the Mississippi legislature to the United States Senate as a Republican to represent Mississippi in 1870 and 1871 during the Reconstruction era, he was the first African American to serve in either house of the U.S. Congress.
To watch a great mini documentary about his life, check out this 50 minute video:
1870-1871 - The Force Acts
Also known as the Klu Klux Klan Acts, these Force Acts were passed by Congress in an attempt to combat the terrorist organization’s disruption of Black voting and increasing violence against Black citizens. The acts placed national elections under the control of the federal government and empowered the president to use armed forces to combat those who would deny Constitutional rights.
1879 - African American migration
Confined by Black Codes across the South and organized terror from the Klu Klux Klan, Black citizens began an exodus from the South. Sometimes referred to as ‘Exodusters’, many people moved to Kansas and other Western regions. This movement shifted Black populations that would shape cities for decades to come.
To read more about the importance of these population shifts, check out this article here:https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2019/03/06/black-migrations-black-history-slavery-freedom/2807813002/
1881 - Tuskegee University founded
The beginning of this Historically Black Colleges and University (HBCU) can actually be credited to Lewis Adams, a formerly enslaved man, who never received a day of formal education, though he could read and write. W.F. Foster was running for Alabama Senate reelection and asked Adams to help him with the support of the Black community. Instead of asking for money, Adams asked that Foster help establish an educational institution for the Black population. To read more about this and how they recruited Booker T. Washington to teach at the Institute, click here:
https://www.tuskegee.edu/about-us/history-and-mission
1881 - Tennessee votes to segregate railroad passenger cars
Often marked as the beginning of Jim Crow laws across the South, the law codified segregated train travel. Over the next decade, most southern states would enact similar laws.
1881 - Edward Park Duplex elected mayor of Wheatland, CA
Edward Park Duplex is one of the first Black mayors of a predominately white town in the United States and the first Black mayor of a town west of the Mississippi. Duplex was born in Connecticut but headed West to try his luck, possibly seeking gold. He opened a barbershop on Main Street in Wheatland and became a bedrock of the community. His fellow community members voted him to the local board of trustees and then elected him as their mayor.
1883 - Civil Rights Cases
5 legal cases were combined by the Supreme Court (due to their similarity). The Court ruled that the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was unconstitutional. The Court held that the 13th and 14th Amendments did not allow Congress to outlaw racial discrimination by private individuals. Effectively, this ruling gave Congress very little power to legislate against segregation. It paved the way for decades of Jim Crow laws and inequality.
1883 - Krakatoa erupts
The volcanic island of Krakatoa, in what is now Indonesia, blew apart. The resulting tsunami killed 10,000 people in the area. For a detailed look at the lead up to the eruption, check out this article here: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1884/09/the-volcanic-eruption-of-krakatoa/376174/
1889 - Florida becomes the first state to use a poll tax
Poll taxes were a way to disenfranchise Black voters. They were essentially a fee in order to vote, and were often not affordable for most Black voters. Poll taxes became a popular Southern form of disenfranchisement and were not prohibited in federal elections until 1964 with the passage of the 24th Amendment.
1891 - First convention of the World’s Women’s Christian Temperance Movement
Women, tired of husbands and sons using much needed family funds to support their drinking habits, organized beginning in 1873. They asked owners of saloons to stop selling alcohol to their husbands and sons. The women were temporarily successful at ridding 250 villages and towns of liquor for a short while. However, when sales resumed, women organized into the National Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. The group circulated “The Petition”, asking world leaders to stand against alcohol traffic and opium trading and it made its first public appearance at a convention in Boston.
1896 - Plessey v. Ferguson
In 1892, Home Plessey, a man who had ⅛ Black ancestry, deliberately violated Louisiana’s Separate Car Act of 1890 and boarded a whites only train car. He was charged with violating the law and he pleaded not guilty, saying the law was unconstitutional. He took his case all the way to the Supreme Court. In May of 1896, in a 7-1 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the 14th Amendment did not eliminate legal distinctions based on color. Essentially, the case established that “separate but equal” was legal, according to the Constitution.
April 1896 - Athens hosts the first modern Olympic Games
The Olympics had been held in Ancient Greece for many years, but largely died out until a French nobleman named Pierre de Coubertin decided to institute an education program that embraced the ancient Greek idea of balanced mind and body development. He convinced 13 countries to take part in the first modern games in Athens. The games featured –cycling, fencing, gymnastics, lawn tennis, shooting, swimming, track & field, weightlifting, and wrestling. The first Olympic games featured only men, but by the second games in 1900, women’s sports were included.
1897 - The first subway
The first underground public transportation in North America opens in Boston, Massachusetts. To read more about it, click here: https://historyofmassachusetts.org/boston-first-subway-america/
That is where our timeline leaves us for this week! Check below for additional reading resources and tune in this week to hear about the work of Ida Wells!
Recommended Reading
Recommended Reading
To read more about this period, here are some great books to get you started:
For kids:
Heidi by Johanna Spyri
Published in 1880, the story of a 5 year old girl sent to live with her hermit grandfather in the Swiss Alps. In no way related to the World’s Fair, but a fun read for kids and one of my favorites as a kid!
Ida B. Wells: Discovering History’s Heroes by Diane Bailey
Suited for readers 7-10, this book gives a great overview of Ida’s life and her continued fight against injustice and discrimination.
For adults:
The Memphis Diary of Ida B. Wells: An Intimate Portrait of the Activist as a Young Woman by Ida B. Wells-Barnett
Hear from Ida Wells herself about her early life and what led her to be a tireless advocate for justice for Black American citizens. This journal details Ida’s early life and is one of the few diaries from a late 19th century black woman available to us now.
Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases by Ida B. Wells
This pamphlet was originally written and published in 1892 and reprinted later. You can actually read the pamphlet, for free, here: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/14975/14975-h/14975-h.htm
Works Cited
Works Cited
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