Road To Freedom
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Even though the African American slaves had been freed as of 1863, through the Emancipation Proclamation, the federal courts offered little protection for them as they struggled to survive (Wheeler and Becker, pg 30). Over the next several years the African Americans freedom became less and less due to the states, mostly southern, finding legal ways to create segregation and eliminate the black votes. Threats and violence were often used to the African Americans in their place, and the ones creating these disturbances were often not punished (Wheeler and Becker, pg 30). Because of the violence and hangings that were happening from the mid 1800s to the early 1900s with the African Americans, many black males felt a lack of masculinity and self worth. By the 1890s, 1,357 lynchings had been recorded (Wheeler and Becker, pg 30). In 1898 when the Spanish-American war was beginning, several African American males tried to regain their self worth by enlisting into the military. The whites still very powerful with their threats and violence did not recognize the good that the blacks were accomplishing during the war and would refuse to let them prevail (Wheeler and Becker, pg 31).
During this same time of the rebuilding of the New South, many of the freed slaves were not certain at what to do being free. Many had little or no money to speak of; many were illiterate; many stayed making new arrangements were they had worked as slaves (Wheeler and Becker, pg. 34). These arrangements did not always benefit towards the blacks as it did for their new bosses and landlords. In states that had a “Poll Tax” the African Americans could not afford to pay to vote and with this lack of money also created a problem in literacy which posed the problem of not passing a literacy test to vote (Wheeler and Becker, pg.34). There were a few of the African Americans that did prosper and made it to a middle class standard, but the majority was still in poverty where the white man could say they were “keeping them in their place (Wheeler and Becker, pg 34).”
During this time five people had spoke out at different settings with their ideas to help the southern African Americans to step up and be recognized. Ida B. Wells, a journalist, lecturer, and crusader, tried to persuade the black communities to show the white man how much they were worth to the economy by telling them to walk instead of using a train (Wheeler and Becker, pg.39).