The Reconstruction Era in America

In their novel, The Gilded Age, Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner noted that the Civil War and its immediate aftermath, ‘uprooted institutions that were centuries old, changed the politics of a people, and wrought so profoundly upon the entire national character that the influence cannot be measured short of two or three generations.’ In the hope of rebuilding the broken pieces together, every aspect of society, from urban life to class system to agriculture and industry had to be touched upon. The process of institutional transformation came to be known as the Reconstruction (1865-1877).

Aarushi Anand gives her take on the Reconstruction era.

A Visit from the Old Mistress. Winslow Homer, 1876.

The task of reconstructing the union initiated the transition from conflict to peace by targeting fundamental components of the rebuilding framework.  Restoration of "physical infrastructure," a traditional area of strength, involved expensive maintenance services like rebuilding rail and road networks, reconnection of interrupted water supply and racial desegregation of schools and hospitals. The process of social and emotional reintegration becomes more difficult when conflicts, especially those that last for a long period, damage the fabric of society and render a return to the past impossible or undesirable. Slavery was formally outlawed in the entire United States through the 13th amendment (1865). In order to determine what kind of reconstruction policies to implement, the nation had to first decide whether the Confederacy be treated with leniency or as a conquered foe?

President Abraham Lincoln was of the lenient persuasion as is evident from his second inaugural address “with malice toward none; with charity for all...let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds.” He started off the Ten-Percent Plan (1865–87) which imposed a minimum requirement of political loyalty for southern states to rejoin the Union. Following President Lincoln's assassination, his successor Andrew Johnson and his administration drafted what is now known as Presidential Reconstruction. Johnson, a former enslaver, was deeply racist and recreated conditions in the South which were largely the same as they were before the war. Case in point, he set up all-white government and appointed a trust-worthy provisional governor in the South. During his administration, a number of draconian laws known as the Black Codes (1865–1866) were passed, limiting the civil and political rights of blacks in the South. Since most freed blacks had only the skills to work on plantations the black code stipulated that black workers would be legally bound to the plantation owner. Each year blacks were required to sign a labor contract to work for a white employer and if they did not do so they'd be arrested for vagrancy and then sold off. According to several historians’ Black codes marked the continuation of ‘slavery in all but name.’

The Radical Republicans, who at the time-controlled Congress, were opposed to Johnson's clemency or his role in the South's resegregation. To this end, they passed 2 pieces of law that granted black citizenship rights while also calling for the racial integration of workplaces, neighborhoods, schools, and universities. First, the Freedmen's Bureau, a coalition of Northern officials and Union Soldiers, was set up all over the South. Its goal was to help reunite families separated by slavery which over the course of 250 years had split apart millions of people. In one of its main roles, securing fair labor contracts, the Bureau proved to be redundant.  The Bureau was crucial in helping Black Americans pursue formal education. According to historian James McPherson, there were over 1,000 schools in existence by 1870. Second, the Civil Rights Act of 1866 granted Black Americans citizenship and guaranteed their equal civil rights, including the ability to enter into agreements, acquire property, and give testimony in court. Republicans sought the 14th constitutional amendment (1868) to bolster these rights and prevent overturning of the central government's directions out of a fear that the Civil Rights Act would be struck down. For nearly a century, the promise of the 15th Amendment would not be fully realized. African Americans in Southern states were successfully denied the right to vote through the imposition of poll taxes, literacy tests, and other techniques (e.g. permitting only registered voters since the 1860s to vote).

CARPETBAGGERS

Despite being eligible to run in elections, it was a harsh reality that an all-black government would not succeed and would require white allies to form an inter-racial coalition.  This raises the issue of whether white people are willing to participate in the reconstruction of government in conjunction with African-American voters. The carpetbaggers come first for the purpose. Carpetbagger is a political term used to describe a northerner who united with blacks and the Republican Party and advocated the new constitutional rights of African-Americans. During the Civil War, Union soldiers and commanders who chose to remain in the South after the army were demobilized made up the majority of the northerners who traveled there. In office, the performance of the carpetbaggers was mixed. While some were dishonest, others, “were economy-minded and strictly honest.” For instance, carpetbag lawyer Albion W. Tourgee contributed to the drafting of the North Carolina Constitution (1868), opposed the Ku Klux Klan (1869–1870) and fought for blacks in Louisiana against a law requiring segregation in railroad cars (Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896).

SCALAWAGS

Although the carpetbaggers managed to occupy positions of authority, they were insufficient to form a voting bloc. So, in terms of voting power, the other real group is the so-called scalawags. The majority of them were Whigs, lower-class whites, and Southern unionists who opposed secession.  James Lusk Alcorn, one of Mississippi's wealthiest planters, a large slaveholder, and a Whig opposed to secession, popularized the term "harnessed revolution," which refers to the period of time when White people like himself would lead the Reconstruction process. By far less affluent white people in the upcountry made up the greatest number of scalawags. The number of white Republicans in states like Tennessee, North Carolina, Arkansas, Alabama, and Georgia was sizable. These Republicans did not want the planters to regain power and felt that the only option is black suffrage.  Internal conflict also plagued these regions

KU KLUX KLAN

It is crucial to remember that white supremacist opposition to the Radical Republicans' agenda manifested itself as covert organizations. The Ku Klux Klan was one such group that fostered homegrown terrorism in the United States. Members of the Klan rode across the nation in white sheets throughout the night to conceal themselves and use violence for political purposes. Violence was used to frighten black and white Republicans to keep them from casting ballots. Additionally, it was done to unite white people under the idea that race was the main concern. The glorification of the Ku Klux Klan in the movie "Birth of a Nation" is based in part on the notion that the group was merely exploiting people's superstitions.

The ferociousness of Ku Klux Klan attacks in 1870 and 1871 convinced many that additional laws, either state or federal, along with a vigorous enforcement, were essential to the security of the new order. Carpetbagger Amos Lovering, a former Indiana judge, contends that "universal education in morals and mind" is the only effective way to permanently quell the Klan's brutality. Many of these measures failed. In the South, most white people continued to own weapons. The government was unwilling to deploy armed blacks after the white knight riders since such a move would only intensify racial tensions.

W.E.B Du Bois, described the Reconstruction period as a moment where "...the slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again toward slavery." By the end of the 19th century, 2,500 Black people would be lynched across the South. Occasionally people say that Reconstruction failed, but it would be more accurate to say that it was violently overthrown. It did not fail to succeed because Black people were incapable of governance but because white Southerners did everything in their power to obstruct Black mobility and opportunity.

CIVIL RIGHTS

In a variety of ways, reconstruction prepared the way for future struggle. The 1960s Civil Rights Movement was frequently referred to as the second reconstruction, the country's second attempt to face the issue of racial equality in the law, politics, and society. The movement was a nonviolent social movement and campaign to abolish legalized racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the United States.  Reconstruction also opened discussion on how to deal with domestic terrorism. Racist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan thrived throughout reconstruction and made its imprint on American society via racial bloodshed. The Black Power movement emphasized how little tangible progress had been made since the 1960s Civil Rights Movement and how African-Americans continued to experience discrimination in jobs, housing, education, and politics. Reconstruction is still relevant today because it raises fundamental questions about   American society that are still being debated, such as who is eligible to become a citizen, how the federal government interacts with the states, who is in charge of defending  citizens' fundamental rights, and how one deals with homegrown terrorism.

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References

1.     Foner, Eric. Give Me Liberty! An American History: Seagull Fourth Edition. Vol. WW Norton & Company, 2013.

2.     Foner, Eric. "The new view of reconstruction." American Heritage 34, no. 6 (1983).

3.     Grob, Gerald N., and George Athan Billias. "Interpretations of American History Patterns and Perspectives." (1972).

4.     Harris, William C. "The Creed of the Carpetbaggers: The Case of Mississippi." The Journal of Southern History 40, no. 2 (1974): 199-224.

5.     Trelease, Allen W. "Who were the Scalawags?" The Journal of Southern History 29, no. 4 (1963): 445-468.

America’s 1957 Civil Rights Act: Modern Reconstruction?

The 1957 Civil Rights Act in the US is often seen as not being a great success. However, here James Hernandez argues that the Act was very important as it led the way to the greater changes of the 1960s and beyond - it could even be seen as the start of ‘Modern Reconstruction’.

Lyndon B. Johnson (left) and Richard Russell (right) in 1963. The two Democrats were on opposing sides in the argument around the 1957 Civil Rights Act.

Arguably the fountainhead for the modern civil rights movement, the 1957 Civil Rights Act is seemingly excluded from its rightful place in mainstream history as it never fully delivered its promised potential. But nonetheless, the legislation should be celebrated for its symbolic significance as it demonstrated a growing acceptance towards the Civil Rights Movement and the federal government’s willingness to intervene with state governments to ensure African-Americans were provided with equal extents of the law. As the advancement of Civil Rights remains pertinent in American society today, the beginning of what will soon be widely recognized as Modern Reconstruction originates from the forgotten act as it established the fundamental basis for African-American voter protection and influenced the creation of President Johnson’s landmark Civil Rights agenda. 

1950s America

America was in dire need of a societal evaluation as the country fell deeper into the polarizing void that divided the nation over the issue of segregation during the 1950s. The claimed “free world” of the United States was contradicted by racial injustices present in the nation and was heavily criticized by the Eastern Bloc in the Cold War. Despite Brown v. Board delivering a much needed ruling in favor of desegregation and generating invaluable optimism to what would become the Civil Rights Movement, the new legislation was not strong enough to supersede the actions of pro-segregationist state governments that worked to uphold de facto segregation practices within the capacity of state law. The South became the epicenter for racial conflict as Southern Dixiecrats continually condoned the violent behavior of white segregationists. President Eisenhower soon recognized the growing division of the country and finally decided to put his foot down on the issue along with the help of Attorney General Herbert Brownell.

President Eisenhower’s powerful commitment to social justice played a key role in influencing and supporting Brownell’s legislative proposal that was soon introduced in the House on March 11, 1956 (H.R. 6127). The proposed law aimed to extend the security of African-American voting rights under the 15th Amendment as only 20% of the population was registered to vote as discriminatory provisions such as literacy tests were still ubiquitous in the South. Other key components included the implementation of a Civil Rights Commission to further analyze investigations regarding the denial of rights to minorities, the creation of an assistant attorney general position specifically to aid civil rights in the Department of Justice, the expansion of federal authority to interfere with state laws to ensure equal rights were being properly secured by states, and the enactment of further provisions that would protect African-Americans from unfair circumstances in court.

Lyndon B. Johnson’s role

Though the bill had received support from both parties, the passage of the proposed legislation carried the divisive potential to tear apart the Democratic Party. The legislation found an unlikely supporter in Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson as he chose to lead passage efforts to maintain stability within his party and to garner support for his future presidential campaign. Johnson’s support was quite surprising considering the fact that he had voted against civil rights legislation only a year before. Whether he truly had a change of heart regarding the issue or if his intentions were really to advance his political career, Johnson would go on to champion civil rights in his future presidency.

Senator Richard Russell of Georgia led Southern Democratic opposition to the legislation as Johnson gained momentum. Russell famously claimed that the bill would create “unspeakable confusion, bitterness and bloodshed in a great section of our common country” and was essentially “a potential instrument of tyranny and persecution” when referring to Part III of the bill which looked to extend federal authority. Russell cited a parallel between the proposition and the failed Civil Rights Act of 1866 which authorized the federal government’s usage of armed forces in order to ensure the implementation of civil rights provisions, further insinuating the likelihood of violence occurring if the bill was enacted. Russell’s efforts proved effective as Johnson soon surrendered all hope of including an extension of federal powers in the bill. In spite of facing substantial revisions, and a record setting single-person filibuster by Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond, the act was finally signed into law by Eisenhower on September 9, 1957.

In perspective

The 1957 Civil Rights Act was nowhere near as effective as subsequent legislation but the newly created bill was a promising stepping-stone. It was the first civil rights legislation put into law since Reconstruction and it set the stage for what would soon become one of the most influential reform eras in history - the 1960s. Despite historians citing the bill as a failure, the act should be recognized as the official beginning of the modern Civil Rights Movement. The movement would not have properly progressed without the federal embracement achieved through the 1957 act and further racial oppression would have resulted. If it were not for Martin Luther King Jr.’s untimely assassination, Johnson’s unexpected decision to not seek re-election, and the government diverting a large portion of their attention towards the escalating tensions of the Vietnam War in 1968, the Civil Rights Movement would have greatly progressed through the 1970s and 1980s and racial equality would have been more widely prevalent. Moreover, the Civil Rights Act of 1957 would have inevitably fulfilled its potential and obtained its rightful place in American history.

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A changed relationship? Eleanor Roosevelt and President John F. Kennedy

After winning the 1961 election, the relationship between Eleanor Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy became ever more intriguing. Roosevelt tried to influence the president in a variety of ways, and JFK was normally ready to listen. Indeed, over the first two years of JFK’s presidency they forged a bond that seemed unlikely to some just a few years before.

Here, Christopher Benedict follows-up on his article about Roosevelt and JFK in the 1950s (available here) and the dramatic 1960 US election between Nixon and Kennedy (available here).

The official presidential portrait of John F. Kennedy.

Support Any Friend, Oppose Any Foe

Although she was not seated prominently on the rostrum beside new first lady Jacqueline Kennedy and her past and future peers Lady Bird Johnson, Mamie Eisenhower, and a disagreeable-looking Pat Nixon, Eleanor Roosevelt was in attendance when John F. Kennedy took the oath of office. On that frigid January morning in 1961, JFK’s breath was billowing visibly from his mouth as he implored his fellow Americans to “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” She would ride past the president on the reviewing stand in the inaugural parade with fellow representative of America’s war years Edith Wilson, Woodrow’s eighty-eight year-old widow, and later write to Kennedy of the “sense of liberation and lift to the spirit” she had experienced during his address.

Six weeks later, President Kennedy hosted Eleanor at the White House on the day he issued the Executive Order making the Peace Corps a reality. She was thankful for the opportunity to “have a glimpse of the children…and of the lovely redecorating that you are doing,” adding that “with all the responsibilities and aggravations that are bound to come your way, it does make a difference if one’s surroundings are pleasant and cheerful.” Kennedy outlined for her the agency’s systemic particulars and stressed how vital public service among the nation’s youth was to the success of his policies and to their own best interests. The Advisory Council for the Peace Corps would be one of several pro-active brain trusts (others including Tractors For Freedom, George McGovern’s Food For Peace, the President’s Commission on the Status of Women, as well as the Cancer Foundation bearing her name) to which Eleanor would contribute during the twenty months of earthly existence left to her.   

I Might Be of Use

Appointed in 1945 by President Harry Truman to the first American delegation to the United Nations, Eleanor Roosevelt was unanimously elected to chair the newly formed Commission on Human Rights. Before magnanimously stepping down from the position in 1951 (then forcibly resigning from the UN altogether a year later, per President Eisenhower’s request), Eleanor was the driving force behind the drafting and passage of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, still considered, nearly seventy years later, a monumental achievement.

Kennedy, at the urging of UN Ambassador Adlai Stevenson, reinstated her to the General Assembly just before the official formation of the Peace Corps. She sat in on plenary meetings, consulted with international delegates, traveled the globe extensively on productive good will missions, and used the My Day column to proliferate her message from the exclusivity of private chambers out into the court of public opinion.

In July 1961, with the physical, moral, and ideological wounds sustained by African Americans in Alabama and Mississippi during the Freedom Rides still very fresh, a bulk mailing was sent out across the country with the endorsement of Harry Belafonte, including one addressed directly to President John F. Kennedy in care of the White House, soliciting donations for CORE, or Congress of Racial Equality. Among their esteemed advisory committee were the likes of Reverend Ralph Abernathy, novelist James Baldwin, Jackie Robinson, FDR’s main civil rights critic A. Philip Randolph, and Martin Luther King Jr. Eleanor contributed a note inside each envelope which beseeched that “you and I keep faith with those who suffered” and demanded the continuation of vigilant activity “until buses and terminal facilities are open to all - everywhere - in our country.”

She personally appealed to Kennedy for mercy in the case of fifteen year-old Preston Cobb Jr., a black Georgian found guilty and condemned to death for the murder of a seventy year-old white farmer. Though Cobb admitted in an unsworn statement to having shot Frank Coleman Dumas to death, Eleanor branded “unthinkable” the County Superior Court’s eye-for-an-eye retribution against “a boy of fifteen, whether black or white.”

She also petitioned the president on behalf of convicted Communist Junius Scales who, after weighing the facts of his case, Eleanor believed was “deserving of compassion”, determining that “in a democracy, the fate of an individual is important”.

You Can Take the Boy Out of Boston…

Kennedy’s elocution, and the general delivery of his speeches, which could be mistaken by some for condescension, caused Eleanor to remark that his public addresses would never “take the place of fireside chats”, FDR’s famous form of communication while he was in the White House. As for his harsh Boston accent, which she wished he would “deepen and strengthen” to convey more sincere “strength and personality”, Jack could only volley back light-heartedly, “It is difficult to change nature, but I will attempt to nudge it.” In the very next sentence he mirrors Eleanor’s somber concern over the nuclear arms race with the Soviets in which there could be no winner. “It would be possible to be among the dead rather than the quick,” he wrote. “This has been the weapon on which we have relied for our security…we are going to attempt to improve this, however.”

In light of this, it seems a bit ironic that Eleanor would forward to President Kennedy, “with every good wish and apologies for the number of things I keep sending your way”, the January 1962 issue of Computers and Automation. The cover story was a report on the advancements made to military weapons capabilities called Computers and War Safety Control, which she hoped would be of use to Kennedy and the scientific community in beating their Soviet counterparts to the atomic punch. 

This Great Society of Ours

In recognition of her numerous global humanitarian endeavors, President Kennedy sent a letter to the Nobel selection committee nominating Eleanor Roosevelt for 1962’s Nobel Peace Prize. “I am grateful for your kindness,” she humbly wrote to him, “but shall not be surprised if nothing comes of it.” Unfortunately, nothing did. The golden medallion went instead to molecular biologist Linus Pauling who had previously won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1954.

Kennedy was the special guest on Eleanor’s Prospects of Mankind program, broadcast in April 1962 on WGBH, Boston’s public television affiliate. Discussing their joint venture, the Committee on the Status of Women, the president opined that “providing equal pay and equal conditions for women” was a “matter of great national concern”. After acknowledging the sincerity of his sentiments, Eleanor laments the dichotomy of the situation in relation to foreign nations wherein “women can be found in higher positions, policy-making positions or legislative decisions than they are in this country.” A recurring theme of the president’s boys’ club mentality throughout the interview centered around “how a mother can meet her responsibilities to her children and at the same time contribute to society.” To prove his commitment to the cause, Kennedy, just weeks later, joined Eleanor for the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union Housing Project dedication in New York City.

These Particularly Difficult Days

In mid-June, with the Cold War heating up daily by calculable degrees, Kennedy responded to Eleanor’s despair in regard to National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy’s proposal to conduct high altitude nuclear testing, recognizing “an apparent contradiction between our efforts to advance the peaceful uses of outer space at the UN and experiments like these.”

Unwell yet unwavering, Eleanor dictated a September 27 letter to President Kennedy asking for the use of his name as Honorary Chairman of the Wiltwyck School for Boys, “a unique residential treatment center for deprived, neglected, and disturbed children all under the age of twelve” of which she was a founder and member of its Board of Directors. Five days later, Eleanor mailed Kennedy a typed thank you note for the flowers he sent, along with the cryptic disclosure that “the cause of my fever has been discovered” above her alarmingly shaky signature. The unspecified “cause” was bone marrow tuberculosis.

The handwritten note Eleanor received from Kennedy for her 78th birthday would sadly conclude their personal correspondence. She passed away in her Manhattan apartment on November 7, 1962. An Executive Order issued the following day decreed that, until her internment, flags of all buildings, grounds, embassies, legations, consular offices, military facilities and vessels be flown at half-mast. Mary Todd Lincoln was the only other first lady up to that point to be accorded such a distinctive honor, and only then because of her husband’s extraordinary achievements.

Typically defiant, even while staring into the grim face of her own mortality, Eleanor expressed her desire for her public farewell to be quiet and intimate, a wish which even she must have known on some level was absurd and would be disregarded. She was laid to rest on November 10 beside Franklin in Hyde Park, New York in what was tantamount to a state funeral, attended by her dear old friend Adlai Stevenson, Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, former Presidents Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower alongside Bess and Mamie, and Vice President Lyndon Johnson with Lady Bird. 

John and Jackie Kennedy arrived on the first flight made by the new Air Force One, the very same plane that would, not much more than a year later, convey the body of the assassinated President Kennedy back to Washington from Dallas and on which Lyndon B. Johnson would assume command of the mourning nation as Jackie stood boldly by his side in her blood-spattered pink suit.

In a statement issued on October 11, 1963, Kennedy (as both President of the United States and Chairman of the Eleanor Roosevelt Memorial Foundation) celebrated what would have been her 79th birthday with the release of the Eleanor Roosevelt commemorative stamp.

“Her memory serves as an abiding reminder of the ideals of which she provided the most complete embodiment among Americans of this age,” declared Kennedy. “The ideals of justice, of compassion, and of hope.”

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And remember, you can read Chris’ article on JFK and Roosevelt in the 1950s here, and his article on 1960 election between Nixon and Kennedy here.

Sources

• Papers of John F. Kennedy (with relation to Eleanor Roosevelt) from the Archives of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.
• Eleanor vs. JFK: The Back Story by Elizabeth Deane (Inside the Open Vault, WGBH Boston).
• Eleanor Roosevelt’s Anything But Private Funeral by Marc Peyser and Timothy Dwyer (The Atlantic, November 4, 2012).