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10 Myths About the Civil War Use these links to return to the page you got here from or to investigate other issues related to this topic. If the Civil Rights Movement is new to you, you can visit our dictionary page from any page in the entire web site by clicking here.
Blacks actually didn't have the right to vote at the end of the Civil War.
Southern states put together governments excluding Blacks from voting.
Legislatures from southern states, encouraged by the same people who led the
states out of the Union, made Black Codes which In March 1866, angry leaders of the United States Congress passed a civil rights bill saying a citizen in the United States is anyone born in the United States, except Native Americans. President Johnson tried to veto the bill, but Congress passed it anyway. The bill also guaranteed equal rights to all citizens no matter what race, and allowed the federal government to step in when the states failed to protect those rights. About a month later, the legislature Near the end of 1867, almost every black voter had joined a political
organization. Some of these organizations included the Union League or the Loyal
League which were supported by the Republican Party and the Freedmen's Bureau.
Voting was restricted to men, but women and children took part eagerly in most
political events. Almost 735,000 Blacks registered in the southern states while
about 635,000 white names were on the voters list. In 1867 and 1868 at the constitutional conventions, one-third of all delegates and most of those at the South Carolina convention were black. The southern state constitutions during this period favored Blacks and gave them voting rights without the earlier voting rules. They could also hold public office. This equality didn't last long. The Ku Klux Klan formed in the South to threaten Blacks and take away their power. After the election of Rutherford B. Hayes to the Presidency in 1876, federal troops were pulled out of the South and Whites again took over. From the 1870's through most of the 1900's, Blacks were blocked from voting by threats of violence, being made to take reading and writing tests (some Blacks couldn't read or write so they couldn't pass the tests), and many other voting rules designed to keep Blacks from voting. It was not until the Voting Rights Act of 1965, signed by President Lyndon Johnson over 100 years after the Civil War ended, that it became illegal to stop Blacks from voting. Blacks were finally guaranteed their voting rights in 1965. |
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stopped African Americans from
getting almost all of their rights. Some of these actions were made possible by
Andrew Johnson who became president following Lincoln's death on April 15, 1865.
One month into his presidency, Johnson directed the states to allow only white
voters to take part in conventions to rewrite southern state constitutions. They
then would have the power to say who could vote in their state.
issued the 14th Amendment to the
Constitution, which stated that the states couldn't deny any citizen of the
United States equal protection of the laws. Furious, southern legislators
refused to confirm the amendment, but Congress declared the law to be in force.
The Reconstruction Acts of 1867 and 1868 were very important because they stated
that Blacks could take part in every political process. The legislation ended
the power of the white-run government in the southern states and divided them
into five military districts run by the army. The heads of the district
governments were to sign up everyone who could vote no matter what color they
were. They were to elect delegates for state conventions to help write new
constitutions. In cities and towns across the South, voting registrars signed up
new black voters and created public meetings to teach Blacks about the American
government and the benefits of citizenship.
