The Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 freed African Americans in rebel states, and after the Civil War, the Thirteenth Amendment emancipated all U.S. slaves wherever they were. As a result, the mass of Southern blacks now faced the difficulty Northern blacks had confronted—that of a free people surrounded by many hostile whites. One freedman, Houston Hartsfield Holloway, wrote, “For we colored people did not know how to be free and the white people did not know how to have a free colored person about them.”
Even after the Emancipation Proclamation, two more years of war, service by African American troops, and the defeat of the Confederacy, the nation was still unprepared to deal with the question of full citizenship for its newly freed black population. The Reconstruction implemented by Congress, which lasted from 1866 to 1877, was aimed at reorganizing the Southern states after the Civil War, providing the means for readmitting them into the Union, and defining the means by which whites and blacks could live together in a nonslave society. The South, however, saw Reconstruction as a humiliating, even vengeful imposition and did not welcome it.
During the years after the war, black and white teachers from the North and South, missionary organizations, churches and schools worked tirelessly to give the emancipated population the opportunity to learn. Former slaves of every age took advantage of the opportunity to become literate. Grandfathers and their grandchildren sat together in classrooms seeking to obtain the tools of freedom.
After the Civil War, with the protection of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution and the Civil Rights Act of 1866, African Americans enjoyed a period when they were allowed to vote, actively participate in the political process, acquire the land of former owners, seek their own employment, and use public accommodations. Opponents of this progress, however, soon rallied against the former slaves' freedom and began to find means for eroding the gains for which many had shed their blood.
Forever Free
Celebration of Emancipation
Victorious Soldiers Return
Alfred R. Waud. Mustered Out. Little Rock, Arkansas, April 20, 1865. Drawing. Chinese white on green paper. Published in Harper's Weekly, May 19, 1866. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress. Reproduction Number: LC-USZ62-175 (5–1)
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Black Exodus
Black Exodus to Kansas
Standard Atlas of Graham Co. Kansas, Including a Plat Book of the Villages, Cities, and Townships. Lithograph map. Chicago: A. Ogle, 1906. Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress (5–8a)
Standard Atlas of Graham Co. Kansas, Including a Plat Book of the Villages, Cities, and Townships. Index of families in Nicodemus. Chicago: A. Ogle, 1906. Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress (5–8b)
African American Population Distribution, 1890
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Fruits of Reconstruction
Freed Persons Receive Wages From Former Owner
Hampton Plantation Account Book, 1866–1868. South Carolina. Handwritten manuscript. Page 68 - Page 69. Miscellaneous Manuscript Collection, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (5–20)
Glimpses of the Freed Women
African Americans And The Franchise
The Fisk Jubilee Singers
“I Am the Door.” From Songs of the Jubilee Singers from Fisk University. Sheet music. Cincinnati: John Church & Co., 1884. Music Division, Library of Congress (5–16)
Teaching The Newly Freed Population
“Sea-island School, No. 1,—St. Helena Island. Established in April 1862.” Education among the Freedmen, ca. 1866-70. Broadside. Page 2. Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress. Reproduction Number: LC-USZ62-107754 (5–2)
An African American Majority in the South Carolina Legislature
Freedmen Navigate Legislative Shoals
Laws in Relation to Freedmen, U.S. Sen. 39th Congress, 2nd Sess. Senate Executive Doc. No. 6. Washington: War Department, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1866-67. Pamphlet. Law Library, Library of Congress (5–17)
Nineteenth Century Leaders
African American Men in Government
Distinguished Colored Men
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The Role of the Black Church
The African American Church—A Bulwark
Activism in the Black Church
Proceedings of the Semi-centenary Celebration of the African Methodist Episcopal Church of Cincinnati . . . February 8th, 9th, and 10th, 1874. Edited by Rev. B. W. Arnett. Cincinnati: H. Watkin, 1874. Daniel A.P. Murray Pamphlet Collection, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress (5–3)
An African American Institution of Higher Learning—Wilberforce University
The Wilberforce Alumnae: A Comprehensive Review of the Origin, Development and Present Status of Wilberforce University, 1885. Compiled by B. W. Arnet and S. T. Mitchell. Xenia, Ohio: Printed at the Gazette Office, 1885. Pamphlet. Daniel A.P. Murray Pamphlet Collection, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress (5–4)
What percent of slaves were literate?
In the antebellum South, it's estimated that only 10 percent of enslaved people were literate. For many enslavers, even this rate was too high.Why did most slaves never learn to read?
Fearing that black literacy would prove a threat to the slave system -- which relied on slaves' dependence on masters -- whites in many colonies instituted laws forbidding slaves to learn to read or write and making it a crime for others to teach them.What was the literacy rate in the US in 1890?
120 Years of Literacy - National Center for Education Statisticsnces.ed.gov › naal › lit_historynullYearTotalWhiteTotal189013.37.7190010.76.219107.75.0How did slaves become literate?
Many slaves did learn to read through Christian instruction, but only those whose owners allowed them to attend. Some slave owners would only encourage literacy for slaves because they needed someone to run errands for them and other small reasons. They did not encourage slaves to learn to write.