Week 1 Notes

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School

California State University, Monterey Bay *

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Course

108

Subject

History

Date

Oct 30, 2023

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pdf

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Uploaded by ConstableJay3598

Week 1 Intro (A Brief look back at the Civil War) and Chapter 15 Main Topics: What is Freedom?: Reconstruction 1865-1877 The Meaning of Freedom Radical Reconstruction The Overthrow of reconstruction The Shackle Broken - 1874 original art depicting black congressman RobertB. Elliot delivering a speech that became the Civil Rights Act of 1875 The Meaning of Freedom ❖ What visions of freedom did the former slaves and slaveholders pursue in the postwar South? ➢ Add to this question as we go through the lecture Embracing Freedom ❖ Blacks and Meaning of Freedom ➢ Africans-Americans understanding of freedom shaped by experiences of slavery ■ Escaping injustice of slavery ■ Sharing in the rights and opportunities of American citizens ■ Free travel and association

❖ Families in Freedom ➢ The family was central to the post emancipation black community ➢ Efforts to locate missing family members ➢ Emancipation also brought the idea of separate “spheres” for men and women ❖ Church and School ➢ Rise of independent black churches ➢ Churches housed school, social events, and political gatherings ➢ Desire for education ➢ All ages for education all ages flocked to schools ➢ Creation of nation’s first black colleges ❖ Lecture Script notes ➢ Destruction Of of slavery made the definition of freedom central to reconstructing the nation ■ Needed to figure out what “freedom” would mean for the slaves ➢ Could mean the abolition of slavery or expanding African American rights ■ This topic became a road of conflict ➢ Africans Americans understood slavery from their experiences as slaves ■ Wanted to be in activities that were banned if they were slaves ➢ Prewar institutions such as family and secret slave communities, and free blacks churches and schools were strengthened and expanded postwar ➢ Family was the most important in African American life ➢ Former slaves found lost/sold family members, widows fought for pensions (acknowledging the status of slave marriages), ➢ Reconstruction transformed “family life” as free people ■ Normally all the family would be working in slavery ■ Now that they are free women would be at home raising the family and the men would go find work ■ However, poverty did force many black women to find wage work ➢ Blacks left the white churches to start their own ■ They grew rapidly and churches became central to black life - educational, social and political space for the black community ➢ Freedpeoples sought education in order to hopefully one day ready the bible and participate in politics ■ The first black colleges were also founded at this time ❖ How did Black Families, churches, schools, and other institutions contribute to the development of African American culture and political activism in the period? Marriage of a Colored Soldier at Vicksburg

- Sketch of a wedding ceremony soon after the end of the Civil War - Wedding ceremony that was most likely first recognized and not a slave ceremony Mother and Daughter Reading - During and after reconstruction, for years, former slaves had a deep desire for education, learning took place in and outside of school Politics and Labor ❖ Political Freedom ➢ The right to vote became central

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➢ Political action demanding full citizenship ❖ Land, labor, and freedom ➢ Ideas of freedom directly related to land ownership ➢ Many instead that through their unpaid labor, they had acquired a right to the land ❖ Lecture Script ➢ Former slaves wanted the right to vote ➢ Free black and former slaves asserted themselves in the public sphere, meeting, petitioning, and demanding the right to vote, organizing their own political groups and candidates ➢ Black leaders thought that anything less than full citizenship would betray the war’s meaning ➢ Now celebrating fourth of july - many white southerners came to shun ➢ Land Ownership was a marker of freedom as well ➢ Freed slaves wanted an economic life and communities beyond the white control ➢ Believed that they had earned rights to the lands through their unpaid labor ➢ Freedom ideas were similar amongst blacks and whites - self-ownership, family stability, religious liberty, political participation, and economic independence ■ Differences came in how you acquired that freedom ■ Blacks thought that it was a process of transformation while whites thought of it as a birthright ➢ Their definition of freedom did shape the national debate during reconstruction ❖ How did the control of one's labor feature in African- American ideas of freedom after emancipation? Five Generations - Photo suggest the power of family ties among the emancipated slaves