Historical Progress of African-Americans: 1865 to Present

Introduction: Themes of African-American Progress

The historical progress of African-Americans has been marked by both significant achievements and persistent obstacles. As seen across five chronological units — Unit I: 1865–1876, Unit II: 1877–1920, Unit III: 1921–1945, Unit IV: 1946–1976, and Unit V: 1976 to the present — consistent themes of political, economic, social, cultural, and literary progress emerge in each period and collectively account for where African-American culture stands today. This paper addresses one of these themes in each unit and discusses how each period led into the next in a continuous, if uneven, system of progress.

Unit I (1865–1876): Reconstruction and Economic Transition

During the period between the close of the Civil War in 1865 and 1876, life for African-Americans reflected a transitional reformation era. One economic challenge they faced was the need to develop ways to make a living, starting from the experience they had known only as enslaved people. In response, many chose during this period to resettle in areas where economic opportunities were greater. The outcome was a significant influx of African-American migration to the North.

It is the habit of many to think of history as a progression of linear events demarcated by specific dates and times. Though this is hardly the case, the need to simplify information for those who did not live through the events means history is often written this way. For this reason, many people overlook the post-war struggles to redefine institutions — and, in the case of the Civil War, an entire traditional society. The era following the Civil War was by no means a smooth transition from a slave-owning to a free-black society, nor was it free of conflict over the needs of Southern states in the reconstruction of their ruined lands and fragmented social and political order (Golay, 1999, p. 262).

This period is significantly important to subsequent African-American history because, on a social and political level, it exemplified taking one step forward and two steps back. It enabled later periods of de facto segregation and daily prejudice to proceed, yet it also marked the beginning of a constitutional effort to secure freedmen's rights equal to those of white men. The Black Codes — eventually and popularly renamed the Jim Crow Laws — allowed for officially sanctioned freedoms alongside restrictions that created legal segregation across much of the South and reinforced similar conditions already existing in the North ("Reconstruction," 2004).

Like many other political periods in American history, the fight for freedmen's rights was shaped by two opposing forces: on one side, the demand to preserve traditional prejudices, and on the other, the right of freed Black people to opportunity equal to that of whites ("Reconstruction," 2004). The period was further characterized by deprivation, as the devastation of the war on the South was substantial and obtaining even basic necessities was a daily concern — particularly for newly freed Black people. Federal military occupation of the Southern states added another layer of instability. Constitutional changes for freed Black Americans occurred, but not without a fight and not without regional adoption of "protective" measures for fearful whites ("Reconstruction," 2004).

Unit II (1877–1920): Jim Crow, Resistance, and Institution-Building

Fears of a growing African-American influence defined the period between 1877 and 1920. One political challenge African-Americans faced was the pervasive system of segregation laws known formally as Black Codes and informally as "Jim Crow" laws. In response, many African-Americans began to develop their own institutions wherever possible. The outcome was an entire subculture of infrastructure that included Black-owned businesses, Black churches, and Black-run organizations — some unique to the African-American community and others running parallel to white-controlled institutions.

The Black Codes of the Reconstruction era gave way almost directly to the Jim Crow laws, which governed the coexistence of Black and white Americans through stark segregation. These laws determined where Black people could live, work, and even eat. Although Black Americans remained largely marginalized, these federal and local laws created a system that offered whites protection from competition for scarce resources while cementing the subordinate status of Black Americans across nearly every public — and sometimes private — sphere of life.

The Supreme Court's 1896 ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson, which held that separate facilities for whites and Black people were constitutional, encouraged the passage of further discriminatory laws that erased many of the gains made during Reconstruction. Railways and streetcars, public waiting rooms, restaurants, boardinghouses, theaters, and public parks were segregated. Separate schools, hospitals, and other public institutions — generally of inferior quality — were designated for Black Americans. By World War I, even workplaces had been segregated ("Jim Crow Laws," 2004).

Although it is often stated that World War II marks the beginning of desegregation in the South, the North was in many places equally segregated, and meaningful change did not come easily. On a federal level, numerous constitutional and Supreme Court rulings were required before local laws were challenged and struck down. In most cases, resistance to even constitutional mandates was intense — as illustrated by the need to send National Guard troops to Arkansas to allow a handful of Black students to attend an all-white school (Klarman, 2004, pp. 4, 345).

In 1950 the Supreme Court ruled that the University of Texas must admit Herman Sweatt to its law school on the grounds that the state did not provide equal education for him. This was followed in 1954 by the landmark Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, declaring racially separate facilities unconstitutional. Black Southerners used legal suits, mass sit-ins, and boycotts to hasten desegregation. A march on Washington by over 200,000 people in 1963 dramatized the movement to end Jim Crow. Southern whites often responded with violence, and federal troops were needed to protect Black citizens — notably at Little Rock, Arkansas (1957), Oxford, Mississippi (1962), and Selma, Alabama (1965). The Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 finally ended the legal sanctions underpinning Jim Crow ("Jim Crow Laws," 2004).

The validation of civil rights came slowly and not without violence and death. Those who attempted to exercise previously granted rights — such as the constitutional guarantee of voting rights for Black men and, eventually, Black women — often faced poll taxes, literacy tests, intense social pressure, beatings, fabricated criminal charges, drive-by shootings, and lynchings (Klarman, 2004, p. 365). These events coincided with the rise of the organized civil rights movement as it lobbied at both federal and local levels for legal change and genuine enfranchisement.

There were many forms of the African-American freedom movement during the Jim Crow era and beyond. As Black abolitionists shaped a bolder and more autonomous movement in the 1840s and 1850s, they developed new strategies to combat racism and force the issue of slavery to the center of American political life (Ripley, Finkenbine, Hembree, & Yacovone, 1993, p. 15). Loose associations of individuals who had fought for emancipation were transformed into institutional advocates for Black rights. National organizations that coordinated sweeping efforts to eradicate segregation laws included the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) — arguably the most successful on a legal level — the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Each played different, sometimes overlapping, roles in challenging segregation and employed distinct tactics to do so (Jonas, 2005, p. 1).

Conclusion

The African-American experience often defines American identity, as racial division and periods of racial progress are evident throughout nearly all of American history. The chronological periods examined in this paper help illuminate the progress made from one era to the next. This work has attempted to trace that progress by examining each unit of time and discussing one representative theme associated with each period. The result is not a comprehensive, textbook-style account but a brief overview of how conditions changed across time — and, more importantly, how African-Americans have progressed through history despite persistent and formidable obstacles.

References

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Jonas, G. (2005). Freedom's Sword: The NAACP and the Struggle against Racism in America, 1909–1969. New York: Routledge.

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Kivel, P. (1995). Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice. New York: New Society Publishers.

Klarman, M. J. (2004). From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality. New York: Oxford University Press.

Lewis, T. (2005, December 9). DOJ threatens lawsuit over Southern Illinois University's affirmative action program. civilrights.org.

Reconstruction. (2004). In The Columbia Encyclopedia (6th ed.). New York: Columbia University Press.

Ripley, C. P., Finkenbine, R. E., Hembree, M. F., & Yacovone, D. (Eds.). (1993). Witness for Freedom: African-American Voices on Race, Slavery, and Emancipation. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.

McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents (1950).