Reconstruction and African Americans

A Union officer representing the Freedman's Bureau stands between armed groups of Euro-Americans and Afro-Americans.

Library of Congress

With the ascent of Andrew Johnson to the White House, African Americans fears were realized when President Johnson appointed Mississippi Supreme Court Judge William Sharkey as Provisional Governor. Governor Sharkey, despite being a staunch Unionist before and during the war, did not allow black citizens to participate in a new state constitutional convention in August of 1865. The new Mississippi state constitution acknowledged the abolition of slavery but, it did not give any civil rights protections to African Americans.

By November of 1865, a state-wide election was organized where white voters elected many former Confederates into state and local offices. With a firm control over both state and local governments, and the promises of President Johnson to stay out of the state’s affairs, Mississippi's state legislature passed the first "Black Codes," which were initiating the following January. These racist laws relegated African Americans to a second-class citizens and required all former slaves to sign an annual labor contract to work on the plantations. To prevent blacks from voting, a system of poll taxes were initiated to prevent political participation.

The recent freedmen and woman watched as Mississippi tumbled back into antebellum-like systems. However, Vicksburg's African Americans began voicing their opposition to the post-war order. With the help of the Freemen's Bureau as well as idealistic, progressive whites based in the South, they lobbied officials in Congress to stand against both President Johnson and the Southern white political leadership.

 

Mississippi's Reconstruction Era Governor and Union war hero Adelbert Ames.

Library of Congress

In 1866, reports from the Southern states on former Confederates returning to power pushed the Radical Republicans within Congress to take control of Reconstruction. Congressional Reconstruction focused on dividing the former Confederate States into Military Districts under the orders to prepare the states for readmission to the Union based on the following criteria: civil rights for all citizens, universal suffrage for male citizens, and the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment. With the Southern white government kicked out of power, Vicksburg’s African American community looked to the future to build on a new society with their inclusion in the political process.

However, despite the military governors pushing for ratifying a state constitution that included African Americans within the political system, white Democrats and other Conservatives resented being forced by Federal military governors to concede to black suffrage. With the backing of the Republican majority in Congress, and the new Republican President Ulysses S. Grant, the push back was not a success.

By 1870, the city of Vicksburg and Warren County, Mississippi became a Republican stronghold due to the dedicated and sizeable African American population there. Not only were their ideas embraced, but their voice in the political process successfully sought to better their communities. New Black Churches provided a spiritual center for the community and a rally point for the African American population to support political causes affecting their community. Freedman's Bureau schools provided education, teaching literacy for African American children and adults alike.