[Detail] Training School for Wives and Mothers, Baton Gouge, La. 1888.
The Federal Government’s Role
Through the Freedmen’s Bureau, the federal government also supported efforts to help the former slaves during Reconstruction. Mary Ames describes the experiences she and a colleague, Emily Bliss, encountered as teachers on Edisto Island, South Carolina, during Reconstruction in From a New England Woman's Diary in Dixie in 1865. The work describes the poor living conditions, lack of food, water, and other necessities of life. Their school enrolled more than 100 students, both children and adults. When the Freedmen’s Bureau withdrew support for their school, the two women returned to Massachusetts. Research the Freedmen’s Bureau, political opposition to its establishment, and the difficulty it faced during Reconstruction. How successful was the Freedmen’s Bureau? W.E.B. Du Bois, an author represented in this collection, wrote an essay on the Freedmen’s Bureau that is readily available online. What was his assessment of its success?
The federal government also passed legislation to advance the cause of the former slaves. Amendments XIII, XIV, and XV of the Constitution were intended to deal with the effects of slavery, as were a number of acts of Congress. The Civil Rights Act of 1875, one such law, made it illegal to discriminate on the base of race or color in public accommodations and facilities. The Supreme Court declared this Act unconstitutional in 1883.
Examine The Barbarous Decision of the United States Supreme Court Declaring the Civil Rights Act Unconstitutional by Henry McNeal Turner, a civil rights activist and bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. The work includes the Court decision in the case, along with accounts of speeches by Frederick Douglass and Colonel R.G. Ingersoll in opposition to the Supreme Court’s decision. Turner published the pamphlet in 1893, three years before the Supreme Court issued its decision in Plessy v. Ferguson.
- Why did Henry McNeal Turner feel it was necessary to put together this book? Why does he call the Court’s decision “barbarous”?
- On what grounds did the Supreme Court strike down the Civil Rights Act of 1875? Why did Justice Harlan dissent from the decision?
- How did the Court’s decision give credence to the so-called “Jim Crow” laws? Would Plessy v. Ferguson have been moot if the Civil Rights Act of 1875 had still been in effect?
