NSCC Library: Anti-Racism Resources : Civil War and Reconstruction Era (1861-1877)

Introduction

The Civil War pitted secessionist Southern pro-slavery states against the pro-Union, anti-slavery states of the North. The war concluded with the emancipation of enslaved people, and the passage of constitutional amendments and laws meant to protect the rights of newly freed citizens. African Americans won political office during Reconstruction; however, the era was also marked by frequent intimidation, terrorism and disenfranchisement of African Americans who sought autonomy and equality (From Black Freedom Struggle in the United States)

The documentary series "Emancipation Road" looks at different eras of the historic struggle for Black Freedom. This episode explore the Emancipation Proclamation and its impact on the end of the Civil War, the Reconstruction era in the American south and the Reconstruction era constitutional amendments passed to protect gains of the Civil War and Reconstruction.

Colfax Massacre (1873)

Clip from "Into the Fire"
Clip from "Into the Fire" discussing the violent backlash to Blacks gaining political power in the post-Civil War south

The Colfax Massacre by LeeAnna Keith
Call Number: NSCC E-Book
ISBN: 9780195310269
Publication Date: 2008-01-28
On Easter Sunday, 1873, in the tiny hamlet of Colfax, Louisiana, more than 150 members of an all-black Republican militia, defending the town's courthouse, were slain by an armed force of rampaging white supremacists. The most deadly incident of racial violence of the Reconstruction era, theColfax Massacre unleashed a reign of terror that all but extinguished the campaign for racial equality.LeeAnna Keith's The Colfax Massacre is the first full-length book to tell the history of this decisive event. Drawing on a huge body of documents, including eyewitness accounts of the massacre, as well as newly discovered evidence from the site itself, Keith explores the racial tensions that led tothe fateful encounter, during which surrendering blacks were mercilessly slaughtered, and the reverberations this message of terror sent throughout the South. Keith also recounts the heroic attempts by U.S. Attorney J.R. Beckwith to bring the killers to justice and the many legal issues raised bythe massacre. In 1875, disregarding the poignant testimony of 300 witnesses, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in U.S. v. Cruikshank to overturn a lower court conviction of eight conspirators. This decision virtually nullified the Ku Klux Klan Enforcement Acts of 1870 and 1871--which had madefederal offenses of a variety of acts to intimidate voters and officeholders--and cleared the way for the Jim Crow era.If there was a single historical moment that effectively killed Reconstruction and erased the gains blacks had made since the civil war, it was the day of the Colfax Massacre. LeeAnna Keith gives readers both a gripping narrative account of that portentous day and a nuanced historical analysis ofits far-reaching repercussions.

The Legacy of a Racist Massacre
2020 New York Times article detailing the history of the Colfax Massacre and relating it to the current political landscape.
The 1873 Colfax Massacre Crippled the Reconstruction Era
2016 Smithsonian Magazine article detailing the Colfax Massacre and it's long lasting impact on Reconstruction in the US South.

United States v. Cruikshank (1877)

Snubbed Landmark: Why United States v. Cruikshank (1876) Belongs at the Heart of the American Constitutional Canon
United States v. Cruikshank (1876) is an unacknowledged landmark of American constitutional jurisprudence. Cruikshank, not the far more famous Civil Rights Cases, limited the Fourteenth Amendment to protect only against state action; Cruikshank, not the notorious Slaughter-House Cases, narrowed the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to exclude rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights; Cruikshank, not the canonical Washington v. Davis, announced that the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause protected only against provably intentional race discrimination; and Cruikshank, not the Civil Rights Cases or City of Boerne v. Flores, first excepted the Fourteenth Amendment from the general principle that Congress enjoys discretion to select the means of implementing its constitutional powers. Historically, if the argument of this Article holds true, Cruikshank played a crucial role in terminating Reconstruction and launching the one-party, segregationist regime of "Jim Crow" that prevailed in the South until the 1960s. The circuit court opinion of Justice Joseph Bradley unleashed the second and decisive phase of Reconstruction-era terrorism, while the ruling of the full Court ensured its successful culmination in the "redemption" of the black-majority states.
Facing the Ghost of Cruikshank in Constitutional Law
The article discusses how race-based violence institutionalized in American law. Topics discussed include African American Michael Brown's death at the hands of Ferguson, Missouri, police officer Darren Wilson, race-conscious state authority; failure of constitutional law in preventing official racial violence; and decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in cases 'City of Los Angeles v. Lyons,' ' United States v. Cruikshank,' and 'McCleskey v. Kemp.'
A Lost Jurisprudence of the Reconstruction Amendments
The article discusses what the author refers to as the lost jurisprudence of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution which were enacted in America's Reconstruction era in the aftermath of the nation's Civil War. Several U.S. Supreme Court constitutional law cases from the 19th century are examined, including United States v. Cruikshank and Ex parte Yarbrough. U.S. civil rights cases and violence against blacks in America are examined, along with state laws.

Hamburg Massacre (1876)

How a war of terror kept blacks oppressed long after the civil war ended: a massacre in Hamburg, S.C., epitomized the violence that eviscerated Reconstruction
From 1865 to 1877, more than 3,000 freedmen and their white Republican allies would be murdered across the South. The truth would be buried for decades in myths and cover stories that blamed the victims, hid the political purpose of the violence and wildly exaggerated the supposed wrongs committed against the white Southerners by the "carpetbag" governments.