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Did the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments lead to a real improvement in the…

- - - - led to real improvements in education
        
        4,300 schools by 1870
        
        colleges e.g. Tuskegee institute and Hampton Institute
        
        universities e.g. Howard Fisk
        
        significant improvement in literacy rates - black literacy doubled during reconstruction
        
        1865-70, Bureau spent $5million in the effort to help freedmen build schools and hire teachers
    - - freedom of movement
      - no longer had to fear capture by slave hunters
    - - Isaac Myers
        
        founded a cooperative in Baltimore in 1865
        
        by 1867 it was employing 300 AAs
        
        in 1869 he founded the Colored National Labor Union
        
        in 1869 he was allowed to speak at the (white) National Labor Union, putting the case for partnership between workers of different races
  - - - meant that '40 acres and a mule' plan failed to materialised for many freed slaves
        
        only 2000 freed families acquired title to the land they tilled
        
        by 1870 only around 30,000 AAs in the South owned land, compared with 4 million who did not
      - Congress never provided adequate funding
      - President Johnson's hostility severely limited its effectiveness /success, encouraging Southern whites to challenge or ignore it
    - - effectively a legal form of slavery
      - = debt and tied to landowners
- - - - could give evidence in court
      - could work for state govs e.g. as postmen
      - could ride on streetcars in Washington DC.
  - - - Slaughterhouse Cases 1873
        
        ruled that 14th A. applied to federal citizenship rights, not state ones
        
        narrow interpretation, protecting only a few specific rights
        
        enabled states to pass laws limiting rights for AAs
      - Civil Rights Cases 1883
        
        interpreted 14th A. to outlaw only discrimination by federal or state institutions, not by private citizens or companies
        
        allowed discrimination in hotels, restaurants, trains etc.
      - Plessy v. Ferguson 1896
        
        ruled 'separate but equal' facilities constitutional
        
        opened the way for the spread of Jim Crow laws
        
        also reinforced by Williams v. Mississippi 1898 + Cumming v. Richmond County Board of Education 1899
      - hence by 1900, the equal civil rights granted to AAs by the 14th A. had been gutted by the Supreme Court's narrow interpretation of its meaning
- - - - 2 US senators
        
        Blanche K. Bruce
        
        Hiram Revels
      - 16 to House of Representatives
      - 700+ State Congressmen
      - 1000s of local office-holders e.g. Sheriff
      - South Carolina even had a majority black legislature in 1877 (former confederate state)
        
        however, even in SC, a state that was seemingly dominated by black politicians, AA members never achieved the level of power wielded by their white colleagues during Reconstruction
    - - held state and local conventions to protest against discriminatory treatment + demand suffrage, as well as equality before the law
  - - - withdrawal of federal troops from S + end of reconstruction
    - - e.g. Florida 1885 onwards (seg.)
      - e.g. Mississippi 1890 (vote)
    - - varying from 1% in Louisiana to 3% in Arkansas
    - - KKK 1865
        
        aimed to prevent AAs from exercising their right to vote - was increasingly successful
        
        many AAs elected in early 1870s only served one term
        
        lynching
      - White League 1874