BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY:
THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY'S IMPACT ON THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
RECONSTRUCTION ERA
“Schoolhouse being burned to ashes during the Memphis riot, 1866”
[Source: Tennessee State Library and Archive]
After the Civil War, Americans were faced with the challenge of rebuilding the South and reuniting a divided nation. The Emancipation Proclamation declared the intention to abolish slavery in the United States.
“For The Sunny South: A humor magazine published in New York City, satirizes the Jim Crow laws that mandated segregated public transportation in the South.”
[Source: Library of Congress]
"The Rail Splitter At Work Repairing the Union: Cartoon of Reconstruction era of the United States, 1865"
[Source: Libary of Congress]
However, states were left to determine the fate of African Americans, leading to the adoption of restrictive Jim Crow and the Black Code Laws to impose the notorious segregation regulations and limit their ability to vote in southern states.
"This is an illustration from the November 16, 1867 edition of Harper's Weekly."[Source: Harper’s Weekly]
"Historian Mary Ellen Curtin explains the origins of Black Codes and how they were local laws to subject free people to systems of control."[Source: PBS.org]