THE END OF SLAVERY

Emancipation, or the ending of slavery, didn't happen in a single day. The process began in April 1861 with the outbreak of the American Civil War between free states of the North and slave states of the South. During the war, wherever the Union or Northern Army gained control, slavery, for all practical purposes was ended. It's estimated that half a million slaves escaped to Union-controlled areas.

The next big step in the process took place on January 1, 1863. President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring that slaves in states, or portions of states, at war against the United States were free. Few slaves were freed, however, since most lived in the rebellious South. Nevertheless, the Proclamation was a critical turning point: it increased Northern support by making the end of slavery a principal objective of the war. Freedom for all slaves came later, in 1865 when the war ended and Congress passed the l3th Amendment to the Constitution, which completely abolished slavery. Another Amendment, the l4th, gave blacks full citizenship rights. For a time, many hoped that blacks and whites could live together in a state of equality and tolerance. But local laws and customs were used to deprive blacks of voting rights. In most former slave states a system of racial segregation arose, and blacks had to use separate schools, churches, hospitals, parks, swimming pools, lunchrooms, washrooms, bus sections and theater sections.

In the early years of the 20th century, lynchings - the illegal killing of people for real or imagined crimes - greatly increased. After the First World War, the promise of equality and opportunity in the South for blacks seemed further away than ever. As a result, many blacks moved from the rural South to the great cities of the North. Although northerners did not practice formal segregation, blacks encountered discrimination in jobs and housing.

Date: 2015-01-02; view: 927