America at the End of the Civil War

Tragedy or Hope?

“I remember hearing my Pa say that someone came and hollered “you slaves is free at last.” He just dropped his hoe and said it in a queer voice “thank God for that.” (Zinn 145).

Match each image to a Civil War Amendment A B C 1.13 th Amendment 2.14 th Amendment 3.15 th Amendment

The South lay in ruins But rebuilding the cities would prove far easier than rebuilding society. And as Lincoln warned “the future would be fraught with great difficulty.” H dex.html

April 1865: What next?

What will my new life be like? How will I earn money to survive? Where will I live? I want my children to get an education

Slavery to Sharecropping Lacking money and their own land, many freedmen and women faced were forced to return to former plantations as free laborers under a new system called “sharecropping.” =396B455078B246ECBC5DF DBA55A1E4F32AD3138

How did sharecropping work? A landowner would divide up his land and could create many acre plots. Tools Landowners gave freedmen A small home A small piece of land In exchange, sharecroppers

How does sharecropping work? Sharecroppers worked the land. Grew cash crops like cotton. reen4c.html And gave HALF the crop to the landowner F om/auctions/1999/jan2499/l02 7a.jpg

“Sharecropping came to define the method of land lease that would eventually become a new form of slavery.” -Trudier Harris ecropping.htm Can you tell the difference between sharecropping and slavery?

The Ku Klux Klan begins a Reign of Terror ia_players/a_kkk.html

Approximately 4 million American men, women and children enslaved in the United States were freed at the end of the Civil War, including a man named Jourdan Anderson. He received a letter from his former master asking him to return to the plantation as hired help. Predict his response.

To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee Sir: I got your letter and was glad to find you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Col. Martin's to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living.

What was it like to be African American living in the South in 1900? The average life expectancy was 33 years of age. 90% lived in the South, nearly the same as in % were tenant famers or sharecroppers 44.5% of adults were illiterate In North Carolina in 1916, only 19 African American youths went to school. Literacy tests and poll taxes made voting nearly impossible. Jim Crow laws legally enforced segregation

Who or what was Jim Crow? Based on a black faced minstrel character, Jim Crow reflected racist ideals held by many Americans post- Civil War. Jim Crow was not real, but the laws named for this character enforced legalized segregation. RagJim/RagJim01a.jpg

Jim Crow Laws Alabama “All passenger bus stations in this state… shall have separate waiting rooms… & separate ticket windows for the white & colored races.” Alabama “It shall be unlawful for a restaurant or other place for the serving of food at which white & colored are served in the same room.” Oklahoma “…segregation of the white and colored races as to the exercise of rights of fishing, boating, and bathing.” Virginia “…any public hall, theatre, opera house, motion picture show of any place of public entertainment…. Shall separate the white race and the colored race and shall set apart and designate…certain seats.” Florida “All marriages between a white person and a negro… are hereby forever prohibited.” Florida “The schools for white children and the schools for negro children shall be conducted separately.” North Carolina “Books shall not be interchangeable between white & colored schools.”

Georgia “No colored barber shall serve as a barber to white women or girls.” Georgia “It shall be unlawful for any… white baseball team to play baseball on any vacant lot or baseball diamond within two blocks of a playground devoted to the Negro race…” Mississippi “Separate schools shall be maintained for the children of the white and colored races.”

How did life change after the Civil War? Passage of the 13 th, 14 th, & 15 th Amendment Creation of Freedmen’s Bureau Development of Jim Crow

Bibliography memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/may18.html