The problems and Solutions of African American in the Reconstruction Period

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Arizona State University

AFR 363 - African American History to 1865

Assignment 2

September 17, 2019

The problems and Solutions of African American in the Reconstruction Period

Introduction

After the war, African Americans were subjected to systemic oppression and racial

violence that stripped them of the rights they had just won. Although the Thirteenth Amendment

abolished slavery, the introduction of “Black Codes” and eventually “Jim Crow laws” restricted

the rights of African Americans and changed racial discrimination to be under the law in a way

that was still subjugation of the race (Davis 52). Ex-slaves had a hard time getting education,

jobs, and housing, so they became dependent on exploitative sharecropping agreements that

guaranteed the continuation of economic inequality (Du Bois 189). In 1870, the literacy rate of

formerly enslaved African Americans was only around 20%, which showed the huge gap in

education that the effort of the Reconstruction could not completely overcome (Byrd and

Clayton 245). Besides that, the KKK and other white supremacist groups used terror acts to

silence the political voices of African Americans, thus they kept them in poverty and social

isolation. The atmosphere of fear and exclusion was a manifestation of the enemy that was

deeply ingrained in the racial equality and the Reconstruction policies. In the end, the failure of

the South's federal enforcement of civil rights laws made the condition of the freedmen even

worse, thus paving the way for racial segregation that would last well into the 20th century.

The era of Reconstruction also led to the exposure of African Americans to harsh

economic exploitation, as the South’s labor system was changing from slavery to tenant farming.

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Even though liberation granted freedom, the majority of freedmen were still linked to plantations

through debt and corrupt labor contracts (Du Bois 215). Almost 80% of African American

farmers in the South were sharecroppers by 1880, thus they were at the mercy of white

landowners who dictated wages and crop prices (Richardson 138). The economic dependence of

Black people prevented their mobility and kept alive a racialized labor hierarchy that was the

same as slavery in every way except for the name. Besides that, racist banking and land policies

made it impossible for African Americans to get property or take out a loan, thus deepening their

poverty (Davis 119). Although the Freedmen’s Bureau programs were good in intention, they

were short of money and lacked the authority to redistribute land or provide workers with a

guarantee against abuse. The economic system of the South during the Reconstruction period,

therefore, was designed to keep African Americans as a cheap and easily controlled labor force

for the white elites. This economic exclusion was a manifestation of the uncompleted nature of

freedom; one that was defined by survival rather than equality, and it also unveiled how

economic injustice had taken the place of chattel slavery as another form of systemic control.

During the Reconstruction era, African Americans were subjected to harsh injustices

beyond economic oppression, especially in health and justice. The lack of access to good medical

care and proper hygiene resulted in high death rates, particularly in rural areas of the South (Byrd

and Clayton 276). In fact, a variety of diseases including tuberculosis and cholera severely

impacted the newly freed populations who were living in overcrowded and destitute conditions

without any form of institutional support (Noonan, Velasco-Mondragon, and Wagner 14). In

addition, the Fifteenth Amendment, which was supposed to grant Black men the right to vote,

was only a nominal victory as discriminatory literacy tests, poll taxes, and violence severely

restricted this right in most of the Southern states (Dudden 87). It is worth mentioning that the

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removal of the federal troops in 1877 symbolized the end of the Reconstruction’s safeguards and

it was from there that the Southern states regained their power to dominate and implemented

segregationist laws. This time in history portrayed how social injustice was at the core of

political disenfranchisement and public health neglect. The failure of Reconstruction

governments to uphold reforms led to the deep-rooted racial inequality that lasted for several

generations, thus making it apparent that the true freedom was not only a matter of legal

emancipation but also systemic changes in health, education, and governance were necessary to

guarantee the same rights to all African Americans.

The period of the civil war and reconstruction in the United States in the 20th century

represents one of the heroic times in the contemporary history. North America was one the parts

of the world where slavery took longer to be abolished. However, within a period of about one

decade, slavery was over, and the freed slaves were granted their rights. During the civil war,

African-Americans were oppressed, had no right to voting and socializing (Du Bois 114). The

civil wars, therefore, became the only way to battle for freedom to determine the future of

America’s social, economic and political affairs. This fight still resounds to date and is captured

through various works of authors and leaders such as Dubois’s Black Reconstruction. The

purpose of this paper is to analyze the causes of the issues that faced the African-American

society in the reconstruction period and explains how Dubois formulated their issues and

problems. It further examines his solutions’ completeness regarding how it shapes the nature of

the two races, its practicality, how it shows the economic nature of the nation and its

competitiveness in relation solutions from other leaders.

The root causes of the issues that faced African Americans the during the reconstruction

period

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Slave Trade and Slave trade systems

Slave trade in the in the 20th century caused a lot of problems to the African-American

community. The transatlantic slave trade created the African-American society that exists today.

The Dutch through the slave trade introduced the first African-American slaves (Du Bois 114).

They marked the beginning of slave trade system which later evolved into the nightmare of

cruelty and abuse, ultimately causing a divide in North America. The first settlement of the black

Americans was in Jamestown, Virginia where they took part in the planting of crops such as

tobacco. After the civil war, the problems the black Americans was battling to solve the

problems that resulted from the trade. Abolition movements established during this period

targeted the need to uphold African-American rights and promote equality through the abolition

of cruel and oppressive policies.

They were still viewed as primitive people, and their statuses were stilled held as slaves.

They could not make any political decisions and could not participate in the political processes.

The policies that the black community was fighting during this period emanated from the slavery

system that existed during the time (Gates, Nellie & McKay 304). The slavery system saw the

death of several Africans especially during transportation and during the delivery of the hard

labor. It caused a lot of pain and suffering that made them fight for their freedom during the civil

war.

The legacy of the slave trade was primarily economic and, besides influencing the

experiences of African Americans, it also had a major impact on the development of Western

capitalism. The transatlantic trade was a major source of huge wealth for European and

American economies, which in turn was made at the expense of human suffering and these

profits found their way into the industrial and agricultural sectors (Hudson 38). The exploitation

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at the core of racialized slavery that the world had to endure during this period does not imply

that it was a byproduct of capitalism - quite the opposite, it was essentially the root that kept

feeding the global markets for a very long time. Economic inequality persisted even after

freedom, as the recently freed African Americans found themselves without the means to acquire

capital or land, and these were the two obstacles that the postbellum financial systems

deliberately kept closed against them. According to Marable, capitalism kept underdeveloping

the Black community by implementing policies that hindered the growth of Black businesses and

the acquisition of property by Black people (Marable 67). Black labor was systemically

exploited, and the lack of compensation ensured that the descendants of the enslaved were

among those who were most deprived when they started participating in the national economy.

Such an imbalance explains the modern economic gaps between racial groups interact deeply

with the issue of discrimination but they have their roots in the historical theft and structural

exclusion. Hence, slavery was the institution that tied racial oppression to the economic benefit

of the dominating class and thereby made it so that the wealth and power in the US not only

coexisted with racial exploitation but also grew together with it.

The violence of the slave trade was not only the exploitation of labor, but it was also a

major biological and public health disaster that the African communities experienced. Curtin's

epidemiological investigation reveals that the enslaved Africans had mortality rates of over 20%

on the ships going across the Atlantic due to overcrowding, lack of food, and contagious diseases

(Curtin 59). Such overwhelming deaths uncover the inhuman ways in which the calculations for

the slave economy, where human lives were treated as simply one part of the cargo, were made.

Structural neglect and lack of medical care have deepened this heritage in the following

generations. Noonan, Velasco-Mondragon, and Wagner maintain that the health inequalities

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which African Americans suffer today are "a long-overdue social justice issue" that has its roots

in the historical denial of healthcare to enslaved and freed populations (Noonan, Velasco-

Mondragon, and Wagner 13). According to their analysis, racial discrimination in medicine was

not an accident but it was consciously and systematically enforced. Moreover, the neglect of the

past has resulted in mistrust towards medical institutions which is still the main reason for the

low rate of public health initiatives in the Black communities. The slave trade's epidemiological

catastrophe, thus, represents the biological and psychological scars left behind which, even after

the abolition of slavery, connect the bodily suffering with institutionalized racial discrimination

over a long period of time.

The social destruction wrought by slavery expanded from the core of the fabric of the

community and kinship network. Families were ripped apart in the process of capture and sale,

thus destroying the intergenerational trust and continuity. Nunn and Wantchekon offer empirical

proof that areas in Africa that were the most affected by the slave trade have very low levels of

trust between people to this day, thus showing that the social costs of the trade last for many

centuries (Nunn and Wantchekon 3241). This distrust was not only limited to Africa but also

became ingrained in the lives of African-Americans as a means of survival against systemic

betrayal. The disappearance of cultural and familial security led to the weakening of the

collective, thus making the process of reconstruction after emancipation very difficult. Lasch-

Quinn, through her work on the early settlement house movements, points out that reformers

frequently misinterpreted the needs of Black communities and thus prolonged the divisions

instead of uniting them (Lasch-Quinn 142). These results indicate the link between the past

dislocation and current social alienation. The disintegration of trust, which was the result of the

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slave trade violence, has, over time, turned into the loss of social and political power, thus

making it difficult to attain solidarity within the racial order that is hostile.

One of the major issues that the Reconstruction-era politics brought up was the problem

of freedom, which had not been solved yet. In fact, African Americans were nominally

recognized as citizens but their political agency was weakened through systemic

disenfranchisement. Gregory King's statistical reconstruction of voter behavior during the

Reconstruction shows that the freedmen were very active in civic participation, however, the

structural manipulation of the electoral systems brought racial hierarchies back very quickly

(King 122). These data reveal that political inclusion was merely a performance, a tactic to keep

white dominance intact under the mask of democracy. Randall and Donald argue that the

Reconstruction legislation was often ineffective because it only focused on national

reconciliation and not on racial justice (Randall and Donald 417). The elites in the South were

able to regain their power due to this prioritization while the federal government was retreating.

The political betrayal that followed emancipation was a clear demonstration that numerical

enfranchisement did not necessarily mean that the freedmen had real power. Analytical reflection

on these findings indicates that the failures of the Reconstruction period were not just

bureaucratic ones, they were ideological ones, stemming from the refusal to redefine democracy

in a way that would include non-white citizens. Therefore, the slave trade's political legacy has

continued in the ways in which civic representation has been manipulated and the Black political

will has been systematically silenced.

One of the key factors in the post-slavery struggle was also the rise and development of

African-American journalism whose voice became a crucial tool of resistance. The black press,

according to Simmons, challenged the mainstream media's racist portrayal of the African

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Americans through its own depiction of the situation during the national crises like

Reconstruction (Simmons 45). This media activism did not only educate the community, but also

brought them together, the very communities that exploitation had divided for centuries. The

very act of printing was in itself a declaration of intellectual sovereignty which directly

confronted the stereotypes that were the basis for enslavement. As literacy among freedpeople

was on the rise, newspapers such as The North Star and The Chicago Defender were able to

provide opportunities for collective self-definition and mobilization, Lasch-Quinn, however,

points out that white reformers were always eager to monitor these narratives and control them

by framing them in paternalistic perspectives of 'racial uplift' that deepened the dependence

(Lasch-Quinn 159). These conflicts, therefore, show that cultural emancipation was more than

just the right to free speech - it was the authority to define reality that was required. By means of

print culture, African Americans started to reshape their historical identity thereby turning one of

the most brutal forms of communicative violence of slavery into the tools of self-assertion and

political consciousness.

Contrary to common perception, the African slave trade was not only the Atlantic trade;

its trends also reached the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern worlds which is a clear indication

that slavery followed a global economic logic. Toledano’s research on the Ottoman slave trade

shows that the same mechanisms of turning people into commodities continued well into the late

19th century thereby challenging the Western narratives of moral progress (Toledano 82).

Applying such a comparative approach reveals that the worldwide demand for enslaved labor

crossed over not only cultural but also religious and thus the racial hierarchies became an

integral part of different imperial systems. Also, Hudson’s economic analysis unveils that British

industrialization was to a large extent reliant on the money that was obtained from the slave

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economies that were situated not only in the Atlantic but also in other regions (Hudson 55).

These mutual relations between different regions during the time of slavery suggest that the

liberation of one area was not equivalent to a real moral progress because often it was the

geography of exploitation that changed. Understanding this global aspect of the issue leads to a

redefinition of African-American history as a transnational struggle against economic

imperialism. It is a reminder that the battle for freedom was not only a national one but also a

planetary one - a clash between human dignity and the global commodification of labor.

The damaging effects on the psyche of slavery were, for the most part, longer than the

actual physical structures of it, and thus the scars of the incident have been passed on through the

generations. According to Marable, to racist capitalist society created a new form of

“underdevelopment of consciousness” through which Black people were forcibly separated from

their own cultural and economic agency (Marable 124). The alienation that was brought about in

this way shows that the use of domination to an extent was ideological rather than being purely

of a coercive nature. The social architecture that was there after the Reconstruction, which had

not been dismantled by it, included among other things the internalized oppressions and the self-

doubts that had become persistent. Noonan and colleagues recognized that health outcomes of

African Americans are still reflecting this psychological pressure and, therefore, can be seen

through chronic stress and disparities caused by structural racism (Noonan, Velasco-Mondragon,

and Wagner 16). Their research points out that the remnants of slavery are not only visible in the

economic aspects but also in the physical and psychological health of people. Hence, the trauma

that has been carried for so long and enslavement must be considered as a call for reparative

measures, which, among other things, attend to the memory, identity, and collective healing.

Comprehending this part of slavery changes the situation from it being simply a past event into a

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present and continuous moral concern, thus requiring justice not as a benevolence but as

historical accountability.

Inconsistent Federal Policies

The policies formed at the end of the slavery period such as the passage of the 13th

amendment had various proposals that restricted black Americans in some ways. They faced

formidable political, economic and social barriers and inequality. According to Gates, Nellie and

McKay (309) says that the law enforced rigid segregation laws which led to the formation of

inferior schools for the black community. Other public services were restricted, and they had to

pay poll taxes and did literacy tests primarily geared towards barring them from the rights to

vote.

The policies also officially supported social segregation. During the reconstruction era,

these policies still affected them as discrimination in various sectors such as housing,

employment, churches and in all facets of life was still evident. However, despite the restraining

nature of the policies, they did not cease their urge for the need for freedom and equality (Du

Bois 116). It was during this period that the abolitionist groups such as the Amistad were formed.

It championed for the rights and freedom of the slaves.

The adoption of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments represented legal

freedom, but not actual freedom. Du Bois pointed out that these amendments “promised

equality,” yet they existed alongside economic structures that continued to enslave the newly

freed people by way of poverty and coercion (Du Bois 221). This paradox mirrored the nation's

ambivalence towards racial justice, where emancipation was more of a moral symbol than a

societal change. Davis explains that politicians in the north compromised on the enforcement of

the law to maintain sectional unity, thus giving the southern states the opportunity to frustrate the

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federal government's plans (Davis 89). These compromises indicate that freedom loses its moral

strength when it is subject to political convenience. The federal government's unwillingness to

stop racial violence, along with its respect for states' rights, thus, facilitated the continuation of

local systems of oppression. Besides, Richardson argues that these disparities led to the existence

of “dual Americas,” with one being free and the other being controlled by law and custom

(Richardson 147). Such a divided democracy pointed to the precariousness of constitutional

progress, as it was a revelation that federal ideals of equality were being eroded by racially

motivated institutional silence.

In fact, the implementation of federal economic policy was very inconsistent even after

legal emancipation and as a result, Black Americans were still kept in cycles of poverty. Marable

states that capitalism in the Reconstruction South was reliant on the intentional economic

underdevelopment of the freedpeople, which he refers to as “racialized accumulation” (Marable

53). This revelation shows how the lack of intervention by the federal government regarding land

reform, especially the failure of the “forty acres and a mule” promise, deepened economic

dependency. Davis argues that the top priority for northern industrialists was labor stability

rather than racial equity which resulted in wage suppression and exclusion from the newly

industrialized sectors (Davis 132). Economic neglect of this kind exemplifies how the passivity

of the federal government was to the benefit of the capitalist class and contrary to the democratic

ideals professed. People who were freed and did not have property or access to credit were only

able to participate in the market in a very symbolic way. Randall and Donald ascertain that the

economic programs of Reconstruction “maintained the old order under a new name” (Randall

and Donald 312). Their research uncovers that economic policy was not neutral, it was a means

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of continuing control through deprivation thus, at the same time, it institutionalized inequality as

a characteristic of the country's development rather than a defect.

While the issues of education and the right to vote were debated publicly, health policy

for African Americans was deliberately ignored. Byrd and Clayton reveal that the postwar

government abandoned medical infrastructure for the newly freed populations, which led to

outbreaks of diseases and shorter life spans in comparison to those of whites (Byrd and Clayton

285). The neglect in this instance highlights racial inequality not only in the way it was reflected

in existing policies but also how it was experienced by the racially segregated society that was

both individually and collectively aware of this injustice. Noonan, Velasco-Mondragon, and

Wagner point out that this failure created “a health deficit” that lingered to the present day, thus

linking the early absence of policies to racial health disparities that still exist (Noonan, Velasco-

Mondragon, and Wagner 15). Their work calls for social justice in health and states that it was

never part of the Reconstruction political agenda. The hospitals of the Freedmen’s Bureau, while

being important in a figurative sense, suffered from lack of money and were only temporary. Du

Bois noticed that these places “died from indifference”, and therefore, he declared that liberty

without the safeguard of the body was still lacking (Du Bois 248). The trend of neglecting health

policies gradually resulted in the transformation of biological vulnerability into a political

weapon by which the health sector became a new racialized governance field. Hence, the lack of

support from the federal government was directly linked to the health issues of Black

communities and eventually to their survival.

The conflicts in the federal government during the Reconstruction era influenced the

people's gendered side of the fight for equal rights. Dudden points out that the debates about the

Black male suffrage deliberately left out women of both races, which shows that the political

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vision of emancipation was a very patriarchal one only (Dudden 94). Her study of the matter

reveals that the state's decision to enfranchise only certain groups maintained not only the racial

hierarchies but also the gender oppression. Du Bois observed that the battle for universal

suffrage was a "moral crisis in democracy" during which the state's way of defining citizenship

was closely linked to race and gender privilege (Du Bois 263). The excluded ones reveal that the

Reconstruction amendments were not universal at all, they established a hierarchy of freedom.

Lasch-Quinn's research on social reform depicts that Black women were the ones who had to

carry the double b-urdens of racial and gendered exploitation in the segregated labor markets

(Lasch-Quinn 173). The Federal silence about these intersections is indicative of a bigger

philosophical failure: the incapacity of the equality concept to be inclusive. The neglecting of

this not only put women at the margins but also broke the solidarity between the movements for

racial justice, thus, the collective pursuit of full citizenship was weakened.

With the decline of civil rights law enforcement during the times of reconstruction,

segregation eventually became the institution that was most promoted. Federal disengagement in

1877 that "left the freedpeople under state control" and thus allowed the structures of Jim Crow

to grow without any checks was the point that Richardson referred to (Richardson 169). The

departure referred to here is not only one of political exhaustion, but also a moral retreat of a

very deliberate kind. Davis records that the northern reformers rationalized this disengagement

by depicting racism as a local problem of the South rather than a national crisis (Davis 175). This

rhetorical distancing facilitated the systemic injustice, thus, it was also a way for the federal

government to maintain its image as a progressive one. Later on, Moore relates this historical

retreat to the present-day racial control systems and states that mass incarceration is "the new Jim

Crow," the institutional descendant of Reconstruction-era abandonment (Moore 57). These links

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show the ways in which inconsistent enforcement of policies at different times can become

historical mechanisms for racial persistence. The federal retreat transformed Reconstruction into

a long cycle of unfulfilled promises and deferred justice that was embedded in every future

policy debate about race and citizenship; it did not, however, mark the end of the federal retreat.

In spite of instability at the federal level, African Americans changed the oppression to

cultural and political resistance. Simmons shows that the Black press was “the conscience of

Reconstruction,” because it made louder the voices that were left out from the federal discourse

(Simmons 63). This media activism indicates that freedom which was denied by law was

nevertheless taken back through communication and self-representation. Davis states that the

leaders of the Black community turned the idea of citizenship into one not depending on the state

but as a moral right based on labor, sacrifice, and intellect (Davis 204). Such redefining of the

concepts shook the grounds for the legitimacy of federal inconsistency by saying that African

Americans were the truest agents of democracy. Similarly, Du Bois wrote that Black Americans

“reconstructed America in their own image of justice,” at the very time when the nation was not

recognizing them (Du Bois 286). These reconsiderations point to the paradox that while federal

policy was faltering, Black cultural resilience was broadening the very concept of citizenship.

The community, through the press, education, and activism, came to know belonging beyond the

confines of law, they turned their being left out into a platform for their lasting moral leadership.

The need to Extend Slavery

The reconstruction period was also marked by the struggle to uphold the extension of the

slave trade. The northern whites who were only the Republicans wanted the oppression of the

black Americans to continue. They considered the African-Amerian community to be illiterate,

and the educational rights they had was undue. The issue caused struggle and alienation between

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the two parties, but the African-Americans did not give up their rights. They created their places

of worship and fraternal organizations where the notion of safeguarding the welfare of the people

and an activist form of government was promoted (Dubois 112). The governments during this

period were not perfect; however, the black community proved their resilience. It developed their

concept of revolution in the white supremacy society that existed before and during the civil war.

After the Civil War, the effort to extend slavery was not only class struggle ideology, it

was, reconnecting with very deeply economic aspects. According to Clegg, slavery was “a mode

of capitalist accumulation,” where the foundation of modern finance and industrial expansion

was derived from the exploitation of human labor (Clegg 283). This interconnection between

capitalism and enslavement to the extent that emancipation was a threat not only to racial

hierarchy but also to the structures of profit is disclosed by the same. Schermerhorn and

Schermerhorn assert that merchants, insurers, and manufacturers across the North were the

beneficiaries of the transregional networks of the slave economy (Schermerhorn and

Schermerhorn 119). Their research reveals that the North’s fight against slavery was sometimes

morally charged but economically compromised. Olmstead and Rhode also indicate that the

cotton industry which was the main driver of exports was responsible for more than half of the

U.S. exports before the Civil War, hence stressing its national economic centrality (Olmstead and

Rhode 9). These revelations uncover the double standard of a nation singing the praises of liberty

while at the same time depending on bondage for prosperity. The intention to prolong slavery

was basically a justification of economic stability guarded behind the façade of racial

paternalism, a system where profit and prejudice were intimate partners without any disjunction.

One of the most notable examples of the political orchestration of the effort to keep the

legacy of slavery were laws and institutions that, while maintaining racial dominance, were

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disguised under new guises. According to Berlin, the “long emancipation” was less an event and

more a contested process, in which federal and state governments negotiated the limits of

freedom (Berlin 145). His analysis uncovers the fact that the political leaders tried to find a

compromise between moral ideals and economic interests, thus creating half-measures that in

effect perpetuated oppression. Allain and Hickey argue that the postbellum property law

continued to treat the formerly enslaved individuals as transferrable economic assets through the

debt and labor contracts (Allain and Hickey 922). This transformation of property even more

blurred the line between legal freedom and servitude, thus giving the white elites the opportunity

to keep social control. Patterson points to the continuation of the “legal imagination of slavery”

in racialized policing and coerced labor, which is a way of holding African Americans in quasi-

enslaved conditions (Patterson 338). The governance machinery, therefore, did not vanish but

rather changed in form, thus turning the slave system into a bureaucratic order that still

maintained the slave system’s spirit while at the same time masking its cruelty in law and policy.

The ideological defense of slavery after Reconstruction hinged heavily on moral

manipulation and racial science. Postwar South, according to Grandin, developed "an empire of

necessity," in which white supremacy was not only still the economic survival but also the divine

order (Grandin 76). This moral justification transformed the exploitation into the taking of care

of the "paternal" side, thus giving the elites a chance to present themselves as bountiful while

they enforced submission. Berlin states that such rhetoric also reappeared in the politics of the

Reconstruction, as it represented freedpeople as the ones who could not govern themselves and

had to be supervised by whites (Berlin 163). This ideological trick was the functioning of the

psychological domination device, trying to convince the emancipated that they were inferior.

Moreover, Clegg mentions that capitalists employed racial hierarchy to align liberal ideals with

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economic coercion and thus create an "ethical capitalism" which seemingly legitimized the

societal gap (Clegg 294). These are the arguments that demonstrate how the logic of slavery not

only had support from the law but also from people's beliefs. The North's moral exhaustion and

the South's theological justifications were enabling each other to keep alive a culture that saw

freedom as something to be earned and equality as something not deserved, the heritage that was

kept for a very long time after the physical bondage was abolished.

Though the slavery had been abolished in the country by law, the African Americans

were still tied to servitude through forced and underpaid labor. According to Schermerhorn and

Schermerhorn, sharecropping and convict leasing replicated identical economic relations as

plantation slavery, getting cheap laborers in the white masters (Schermerhorn and Schermerhorn

214). These exploitative efficiencies were given legal authorization extant that the state

participation in perpetuating racialized production was indeed active. Olmstead and Rhode show

that the Southern agriculture did not stop relying on the forced labor of Blacks, and the

production of cotton amounted to that of antebellum almost at the level of 1880s (Olmstead and

Rhode 15). The fact that productivity did not cease with emancipation shows that the movement

did not change the role played by labor. According to Berlin, Reconstruction governments did

not have the political goodwill to struggle with this continuity, they had a more experiential

interest in reconciliation with the white elites than justice to the freedmen (Berlin 176). The

outcome was a series of economic enslavement which was disguised as contractual liberty a

post-slavery economy that perpetuated the same hierarchies by use of new institutional

vocabularies.

The ideology of slavery was also extended based on gendered oppression which focused

on the Black woman labor and bodily oppression. According to Patterson, the enslaved and the

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freed Black women were in a compromised subjugation where they were exploited in two

aspects in the economic production and in sexual control (Patterson 330). His discussion

emphasises that the sale of gender was a fundamental aspect in the existence of the slave system.

Grandin records that even after emancipation under the law, racial orders still characterized black

femininity by hypersexual and servile stereotypes and kept the latter in a state of psychological

control (Grandin 143). Not only did these cultural deviations serve as justification of violence,

but they also denied women economic opportunities to be independent. In their study, Stevenson

and Cole discover that gender is still one of the main lines of forced labor exploitation, and

women are more vulnerable to coercion and absent in the active processes of reform (Stevenson

and Cole 89). Such continuities demonstrate that the heritage of slavery was carved especially in

the economy and politics but also in the very fabric of intimacy, where the freedom was

gendered selectively and postponed indefinitely.

The urge to expand slavery found the echo in the new practices of forced labor, even

though Reconstruction was a domestic affair. This shift, according to Clegg, is placed within a

global capitalism that was dependent on it being racialized, and he connects the U.S. South with

colonial labor regimes in Africa and Asia (Clegg 297). It is an international outlook to show that

abolition in America did not end and changed it, but moved it somewhere else. Patterson

indicates that the descriptions of morality that were employed in justification of the transatlantic

slavery were restated in the imperial labor practices whereby the European powers justified force

of coercion as civilizing obligation (Patterson 347). This ideological recycling is an indication

that racial domination can be a portable economic tool in the world. Schermerhorn and

Schermerhorn also make the same claim that financial institutions formerly dependent on slave

trade used the new resources to perpetrate financial services into the colonial enterprises,

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maintaining the equal hierarchies in new geographies (Schermerhorn and Schermerhorn 267).

These continuities underscore the fact that Reconstruction struggle was not a vacuum, but it was

part of a global shift towards legal slavery being transformed to a racialized capitalism -that

evolution of control, rather than the culmination.

In opposition to efforts to reinstate the logic of slavery, blacks created strong

countercultures of independence. Berlin says that liberated people created churches, schools and

fraternal networks and redefined community as resistance, not as sanctuary (Berlin 182). These

spheres developed self-esteem and solidarity against white paternalism. Grandin underlines that

storytelling and oral history became the defiant act and enable the African Americans to speak

the truth against the moral empire of deceit (Grandin 189). This cultural backlash made memory

the weapon of survival, returning concept of freedom to the spiritual financial and intellectual

sovereignty. The other aspect that Patterson points out is the preservation of dignity through

gendered networks of care and kinship despite the economic exploitation (Patterson 353). This

form of collective resilience demonstrated that freedom was possible during the times of failures

by institutions due to solidarity. These cultural reclaiming routines prove that the struggle against

the expansion of slavery was not necessarily purely political but existential, based on the

rejection of the ability of oppression to cognize the content of the very meaning of humanity.

The paradox that would reverberate throughout American democracy is that freedom was

there alongside exploitation remains the struggle of the Reconstruction over the extension of

slavery. Depending on the thesis that the preservation of the slavery and the contemporary

capitalism, Clegg opines that the existence of this continuity symbolizes the moral contradiction

of the liberal democracy (Clegg 301). He states that the end of ownership did not lead to the end

of control, but it only changed the mechanisms. Olmstead and Rhode demonstrate that the

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economic growth in the postwar period depended on Southern cotton, which was worked under

the conditions that were barely different than slavery (Olmstead and Rhode 20). This information

shows that the profit and prejudice continued to be two columns of developing bonded

inseparably. Allain and Hickey also mention that legal changes that defined property did not tear

the more fundamental moral concept of people as property (Allain and Hickey 935). In these

analyses, it is possible to note that Reconstruction failed to destroy the logic of slavery but

instead reconstituted it in far subtler forms. Inequality that still exists today is in itself a

testimony to this partial libertation, the democracy that continues to be bedeviled by economic

and moral specters of its self-creation.

The need for African leaders

The reconstruction era led to the need for African-American leaders to champion for the

rights of the black community. The emergence of the civil rights movements throughout North

American where the slave trade was highly practiced, demanded the need for strong leaders to

steer the movements and liberate the black people. It is during this period that leaders and

activists such as Dubois emerged. Smethurst, (127) says the need for leadership was necessary to

change the progression of the campaigns and the quest for equality and to ease the unrest that

existed. These leaders fought for the freedom and access to social and economic amenities by the

black people. Dubois for instance, went to North America to further his studies and later fought

for equal rights for the black people.

The other reason why the African leaders became essential, was because, before the civil

war, the African-Americans hardly participated in the voting processes and virtually, there were

no African officeholders. Therefore, it led to the need for African leadership in the various

offices to look into the affairs of the black people. The amendments of 1865 gave the black

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people the chance to mobilize significant movements, petitions and parades for political and

legal rights (Smethurst 127). During this period, several leagues for equal rights were staged

throughout North America. Local and State conventions aimed at protesting against the

discriminatory treatment of the black community were established. The conventions also

demanded suffrage and equality in law enforcement processes (Smethurst 129). All these could

not be achieved without powerful leaders to educate, inform and help in overseeing and running

the offices.

The need to oppose restrictive and discriminatory policies that permitted the state

legislature to pass “black codes” which regulated the daily lives of the black people also needed

a common channel to ensure its realization. Since the legislature is composed of the chosen few,

it was necessary for the black African-Americans to select leaders who could represent them in

the legislature (Smethurst 128). The leaders selected included Fredrick Douglas and Dubois.

Their leadership was quite dramatic as it led to the victory of the Republicans in the

congressional elections, leading to a new chapter in the history of reconstruction. It gave the

African-Americans additional active roles in the economic, social and political areas.

African leadership born out of emancipation was a tremendous change of identity and

vision of morals among the emancipated societies. Leadership was transformed not just into an

administrative appointment but a re-discovery of purpose culturally. Gumede claims that the

leaders of indigenous African tribes traditionally placed moral responsibility, decision-making

processes, based on the ethics of sharing community in justice (Gumede 77). This movement

influenced African-American leaders who turned to the traditions of the community in order to

lead liberation movements. According to Fourie, Van der Merwe, and Van der Merwe, the

African cultures justify leadership based on consensus and shared responsibility instead of being

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dictated (Fourie et al. 224). This type of ground gave those in charge of Reconstruction the

opportunity to constructively emulate inclusion and empowerment. Murithi also notes that Pan-

African tradition of leadership associated freedom and human dignity, and these aspects

identified moral responsibility in global solidarity (Murithi 23). This combination of moral

power and cultural sustenance allowed the African-American leadership to make leadership a

means of moral reconstructions. Post-slavery leadership was not only a quest towards equality

but also a spiritual revival that was anchored on ancestral principles, which signified the fortitude

of a people in rediscovering their entitlement to determine justice, identity, and destiny in a

society that was socially hostile.

The structural obstacles that Reconstruction institutional barriers imposed on these

matters made the validity and sustainability of developing African-American leadership a

challenge. Harmful racial stratifications of the law and economy restricted the entry to spaces of

decision making. According to Afegbua and Adejuwon, one of the reasons why African

governance crises are associated with broken traditional accountability structures is the colonial

interference (Afegbua and Adejuwon 145). The similarities of the African colonialism and the

American racial segregation were vivid as they both weaken the native ideas of leadership.

According to Nkomo, the postcolonial institutions tend to repeat the Eurocentric power relations

which marginalize the African moral systems of management (Nkomo 370). This kind of

alienation was a barrier in the spontaneous growth of empathetic-community-based leadership.

Gumede also notes that it would be necessary to restore the African leadership by placing them

back on ethical and participatory frameworks that depend primarily on justice and not dominance

(Gumede 80). This observation echoes the African-American fight to reclaim leadership as a

healing process instead of a top-down process. By refusing to be governed with structures, the

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leaders in reconstruction initiated the reconstruction of governance as an inclusive, solidary and

recovered self-worth in their repressed people.

African-American leadership during Reconstruction was characterized by cultural

hybridity as the leaders compromised between the African communal concepts and the western

intellectual paradigms. Nkomo highlights the mounting tension between the native culture and

the alien logic of western modernity that postcolonial leaders experience, despite the duration of

time (Nkomo 367). The African-American leaders handled this twofoldity by combining an

ancestral ethical culture with progressive views of democracy. According to Fourie, Van der

Merwe, and Van der Merwe, the contextual adaptation produces a successful African leader that

is a globalized and localized individual (Fourie et al. 227). Reconstruction leaders could link

their cultural memory and institutional reform through such adaptive synthesis. Murithi notes

that the main theme of Pan-African humanism is the leadership based on both Pan-African

spirituality and universal justice ideology (Murithi 28). Such synthesis resulted in African-

American leadership becoming more than a political strategy, it turned into an intellectual

movement between Africa and the diaspora. This hybrid consciousness had changed the meaning

of leadership into cultural continuity and innovative transformation where African-Americans

were capable of negotiating the present without they have to part ways with the moral richness of

their culture.

Women’s leadership during the Reconstruction era brought the new ethical and social

aspects to the African-American activism. Carter and Peters state that African-American women

are still severely underrepresented in the highest echelons of power due to systemic racial and

gendered barriers that discriminate against leadership opportunities (Carter and Peters 118). In

spite of such limitations, however, Black women through education, journalism, and spiritual

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organization forged the areas of their moral resistance. Afegbua and Adejuwon argue that

inclusive leadership deeply rooted in diversity leads to the realization of equitable participation

and collective progress in the most deprived societies (Afegbua and Adejuwon 148). The

organization benefited from this inclusiveness which was a mirror image of the strategies of the

African-American women who advocated for the welfare, literacy, and empowerment. Nkomo

explains that feminist perspectives in African leadership dismantle patriarchal systems and

redefine leadership as a bond of care, support, and justice (Nkomo 372). To this extent the

women like Ida B. Wells and Sojourner Truth not only made the gender advocacy their concern

but also contributed to the formation of moral frameworks for the community transformation.

Their leadership was the ethical core of Reconstruction, thus, they demonstrated that leadership

is not power but empathy - the translation of which into action constitutes the collective dignity.

Local community leaders were African-American agency's most reliable support figures

during and after Reconstruction. Koter highlights that African local leaders through negotiation,

social mediation, and moral legitimacy rather than force (Koter 190). The same spirit was present

in African-American churches, schools, and neighborhood associations, where pastors and

educators were the cultural pillars. Gumede is of the opinion that African leadership should first

of all be a service and a moral obligation rather than an ambition if it is to bring about

transformation that lasts (Gumede 84). Many Black leaders who made education, self-help, and

mutual support their main concerns rather than political rivalry were guided by this rule. Fourie,

Van der Merwe, and Van der Merwe argue that good leadership in an African setting is largely

determined by the leader's cultural authenticity and shared accountability (Fourie et al. 230). By

embodying these traits, African-American leaders were able to turn local organizations into the

nuclei of social advancement. Their actions were a demonstration of how leadership based on

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community trust, spiritual calling, and cooperation is capable of breaking down systemic

oppression even when power is not formally held.

Before their leaders went global, after the period of slavery, African-American leaders

developed a worldwide vision that connected the liberation of the local people with the solidarity

of the international ones. Dreher and colleagues in their book argue that African leaders of the

past always used strategic negotiation and were very aware of global asymmetries when they

navigated the geopolitical systems (Dreher et al. 48). They also say that leaders during the period

of Reconstruction took up the same strategies by comparing their fight to global human rights

and anti-colonial movements. Murithi points out that the philosophy of Pan-African leadership

linking peacebuilding with social justice issues even beyond the national borders and it bases

leadership on universal moral obligation (Murithi 30). In this regard, African-American

intellectuals like Du Bois were among the first to bring these concepts into practice by not only

connecting the struggle for equal rights in the U.S. but also linking it with the global

emancipation efforts. Gumede, on the other hand, sees the rising African leadership as not

limited to just reforming the home front, but rather going beyond and addressing the issue of

justice in the transnational contexts of the national struggles (Gumede 82). This global

perspective made African-American leaders to be able to establish the intellectual alliances

which were not limited to the geographic areas they existed, thus turning the era of the

Reconstruction into the forerunner of the worldwide Pan-African consciousness which would be

the hallmark of the liberation movements of the twentieth century.

The development of education and moral values was at the core of the leadership growth

among the freed communities. Khalifa, Gooden, and Davis, in their article, state that culturally

responsive educational leadership recognizes the identities of the marginalized and, at the same

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time, empowers the collective voice and participation (Khalifa et al. 1278). Therefore, education

was a means of both opposition to the existing system and revival. Van der Vyver, Van der

Westhuizen, and Meyer argue that one aspect of leadership that is caring is moral awareness and

social unity, especially in societies that are divided (Van der Vyver et al. 64). This leadership

style changed the educational institutions and religious organizations into safe places of hope and

healing. Gumede points out that, in African customs, leadership by education is the embodiment

of the concept of shared responsibility rather than that of personal promotion (Gumede 86). The

Reconstruction era was a reflection of this way of thinking as education was the moral basis of

self-determination. Through the integration of pedagogy with moral leadership, the African-

American communities reimagined education as the means by which they would be free and

empowered as a collective.

In addition, ethical and compassionate leadership served as a way to recover the

psychological trauma associated with slavery and thus provide moral repair to a society that has

been deeply fractured by oppression over the course of centuries. In their article "Leading

through Caring", authors Van der Vyver, Van der Westhuizen, and Meyer explain that caring

leadership is a radical concept since it "restores emotional trust, and recreates the human bond in

societies which have been severely disrupted" (Van der Vyver et al. 67). This is consistent with

the moral view of the Reconstruction leaders who considered empathy and justice as the keys to

the revival of the social fabric in a nation torn apart. Authors Afegbua and Adejuwon state that

"leadership based on ethics and accountability revives the legitimacy of the political institutions

in societies which have been confronted with the consequences of the injustice, thus giving rise

to the feeling of the collective purpose" (Afegbua and Adejuwon 150). This ethical paradigm is a

stark contrast to the authoritarian ones characterised by domination and exclusion that had been

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prevalent before. The author says that the peace-supporting African leadership "links justice with

compassion, thus creating lasting bases for reconciliation and peaceful co-existence" (Murithi

35). Therefore, the African-American leaders during the Reconstruction era not only changed the

face of political leadership, they also made it one of the moral resistances, thus making

compassion a political force. Their leadership was beyond the scope of mere administration; it

was a process of healing, which gave back to the oppressed their human dignity and made them

hopeful for the future by sowing the seeds of dignity, solidarity, and everlasting hope for the

generations to come (Murithi 35).

The changes in African and African-American leadership ideologies show the common

shared vision of one free society based on ethics, unity, and social responsibility. Murithi argues

that the main features of Pan-Africanism are peacebuilding, collective progress, and moral

leadership which are interlinked and form the core of the African renewal. In this renewal,

leaders are not only expected to lead, but to serve humanity and not power (Murithi 39).

Leadership hence occupies the center stage as a moral calling rather than a political function.

According to Gumede, on the other hand, the emergence of a deeply transformational leadership

in a society depends on the presence of the convergence of moral virtue, institutional reform, and

visionary inclusivity in the society in question to harness the potential of every segment of the

society and consequently become the creators of just and equal systems (Gumede 89). Such a

combination allowed African and African-American leaders to transcend their different

backgrounds and come up with a shared struggle for liberation and human dignity. As supported

by the Three authors, African leadership philosophy has been a consistent advocate of the

importance of the leaders' ethical integrity and communal accountability as the two main pillars

of legitimate governance (Fourie et al. 232). Therefore, the era of Reconstruction was not only an

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American experience, it stood for a cosmopolitan awakening of the ethical consciousness. By

integrating personal virtue with social change, this heritage is still the source of energy for

worldwide justice, reconciliation, and moral reconstruction of societies movements that come

one after another in different places of the world.

Solution by various leaders

The end of the civil war became the golden dawn for the African-American community

as it freed them from the chains of slavery for over a thousand years. It led to an era of new

leadership that brought solutions to their problems. It marked the first time in history where they

could travel, socialize with friends and stand firm in affirming their human rights. The leaders

chosen brought victory and peace among the black people, and they provided lasting solutions to

their problems (Marable 67) Some of these leaders such as Dubois wrote books such as the Black

Reconstruction in America that have provided various solutions to their problems.

Some of the leaders during this era provided solutions to the segregation period that could

change the view of the issues. Lincoln, for instance, called for the warring parties to meet and

discuss their differences. Marable, (67) adds that these parties were the Confederate and the

Union. They settle for any solution since the two were considered to be unequal. The

Confederate always struggled to make itself exist individually as a nation. However, in the end,

the victory of the Union destabilized the Confederate (Rabaka 59). It was then up to the

government to make a decision on how the Confederate could co-exist with the Union. The effort

by Lincoln was also impossible to be implemented because of the opposition from the Congress.

After the victory of the Union, Lincoln embarked on the process of reinstating an equality

between the Union and the Confederate. To create a balance and a form of satisfaction, he drew a

plan that could allow the confederate to have at least 10 percent of the electorate. However, the

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Congress still managed to overthrow his plan through the formulation of a harsh and restrictive

Wade-Davis Bill which was rejected by Lincoln (Smethurst 128). These efforts showed how he

cared about the equality of all races in America. His death came during the formulation of his

third plan for reconstruction which could have brought better solutions.

During the reign of Andrew Johnson, other solutions for the creation of equality were

drawn. Despite his allegiance to the wealthy class of the South that supported slavery, active

members of Congress and other influential senators from the Republican party forced him to

become neutral in the process of finding a lasting the solutions (Rabaka 60). Regarding this, a

plan was drawn where it was agreed that whenever a problem arose between the parties, a

selected group of members could meet and look into the possible solutions to the matter

(Smethurst 129). However, this was not possible since the two parties could not sit and agree on

anything as the Confederate saw themselves as victims and also because they wanted to exist

separately from the Union.

Booker T. Washington also brought solutions to the problems of the African-Americans.

He was raised during the reconstruction period when political, economic and social conditions

for the black community was worsening. According to Rabaka (60), his solutions for the

problems was the setting of racial programs with the goal of debating on the Negro social,

political and economic programs. Born into a slave family, he understood the challenges and

issues that faced the black people. Another solution was the establishment of an educational

institution where political and more of economic matters were taught. He established the

Tuskegee Institute in Alabama where the black people got technical training giving them an

opportunity in the corporate world.

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Another leader was Samuel Armstrong. He was the founder of the Hampton Institute.

Through this institution, he formulated programs that provided training in the agricultural and

industrial sector. These programs were accepted by the white people, and it gave the black

people an opportunity to improve their status in America (Gates & Nellie, McKay 313). He

understood that through education, the black population could address their issues without

interferences from the whites. He taught them how to adapt to the oppressions and build

themselves without allowing the negative influences from the south.

Dubois’ Solutions

Dubois was the leader who brought the most comprehensive solutions to the issues facing

the black community. Gates & Nellie, McKay, (313) states that his work is still referred by

scholars to date. He won the recognition of the South despite the opposition that Washington

faced after his “Atlanta Compromise.” His educational background from Harvard made him the

best leaders of the Reconstruction period. It prepared him for his mission of bringing peace and

acceptance from both of the black and white societies.

In the process of finding solutions for the black people, he studied several sociological

issues surrounding the conditions of the black community. Marable, (80) argues that the first

solution to the problems facing the black people was that the black people had to be granted the

right to vote. He believed that voting rights could allow the black community to champion for

their rights and vote in leaders who could help them in establishing a political platform for the

people. He critiqued Washington’s move which trained the people to be obedient to the

oppressors.

Another solution that Dubois offered was the need for civic equality for the black people

in America. He wanted the people to have the right to employment among other economic

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platforms. According to Dubois, equal civil rights could allow the people to be independent

economically to avoid overdependence on the white people which could use the chance to

exploit them (Dubois 115). Dubois championed against exploitation of the people as it

destabilized their ability to make sound decisions about their lives without external influences. In

the bid to realize this, he rallied towards the creation of institutions where the black people could

be educated and acquired employment rights in the society.

Education for the youth was another solution for the black people. He resolutely defied

the educational programs offered by Washington saying it was narrow in both objectives and

scope. The plans by Washington had an aspect of devaluing the liberal art studies by ignoring

political, civic, the social injustices and the exploitation based on the economic aspects of life

(Dubois 115). The believe that the youth are energetic to build the society was his philosophy. It

was found that academic education, persistent agitation, and political action would allow the

people to be free and more focused in life.

The completeness regarding how slavery system shaped both races

The solutions provided by Dubois accommodated all the aspects of the black community.

The slavery system has developed them to be subservient to the authorities and the oppression of

the white people. His solutions, such as the use of education to empower the youth, could create

a different society where people can be independent and not dependent like it was during slavery

(Dubois 116). Also, the equality he championed, and the opposition to other forms of

exploitation created a balance where the white and the black people could relate to one another

harmoniously. Dubois (117) adds that the formation of statutory bodies and the establishment of

a Bill of Rights to safeguard the rights to vote and own property that Dubois suggested as a

solution, allowed the white and the black people to treat each other as equals.

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One of the things that slavery left behind was a deeply disturbing stain on the collective

conscience and mindset of both the enslaved people and the enslavers. Cottrol in his argument

states that the creation of a 'racialized legal system' was a direct consequence of slavery which

not only went on to justify the state of bondage but also made it a norm that would be passed

down to different generations leading to inequality being institutionalized (Cottrol 41). This legal

heritage impacted the way people saw citizenship and human worth. Melish points out that the

process of gradual emancipation in New England resulted in the paradox, freedom without real

equality, thus, both races were compelled to redefine the meaning of liberation within deeply

racialized boundaries (Melish 59). These redefinitions were reflective of the larger conflict

between law and morality that Dubois was trying to reconcile. Snyder asserts that the prolonged

history of American slavery was the cause of social hierarchies that were established and

continued even after abolition, thus, they still had a significant influence on economic power and

cultural perceptions (Snyder 24). The survival of these structures is evidence that the patterns of

psychological dominance and dependency were not erased by emancipation. The change that

Dubois saw coming was beyond just the legal abolition of slavery but also involved the mental

side of it which he believed would require the intervention of both education and moral renewal

for the task to be accomplished.

The psychological conditioning of slavery was the main factor that brought about the

interdependence of the different races, which were also profoundly unequal, and these in turn -

races- became the main pillars, the most stable, of the social hierarchy, a hierarchy that made it

normal not only the submission but also superiority. Hudson and Namusoke attribute significant

importance to the fact that the practice of slavery was at the very core the cultural system that

gradually became the framework of the whole world and the main lens through which people

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viewed the world and to be more precise, it was a framework of relational terms that defined all

humanity, in which the portrayal of masters was only possible through the repression and

tyranny of others (Hudson and Namusoke 21). Such an insane building of oneself and the other

not only went far deep into the psychological plane but also left the permanent scars that are

evident in the American racial consciousness even today after the very freedom. Cottrol argues

that apart from legal codes that were put in place after emancipation, they were mainly designed

to uphold white privilege in the framework of neutrality, thus giving the false impression that

these codes are free of bias whilst they are blatantly systemic inequities. According to Cottrol

(44), the survivability of such systems is a testimony to the continued prevalence of the logic of

ownership and race-based hierarchy not only in the relations between people but also in the

structures of social institutions. In addition, Melish points out that numerous white Americans

made efforts to "disown" slavery by characterizing it as a failure of the South, not the nation,

thereby escape moral accountability by this act (Melish 63). This almost universal denial led to a

sort of cultural amnesia that was extremely unwelcomed in the process of finding mutual trust

between races and also the coming of the social healing stage. Du Bois was against this very idea

and transition as he argued along these lines by converting memory into an act of morality and

politics, hence he maintained that facing historical guilt was the only way ethically to

deconstruct society and reconstruct it anew.

The economic systems that were built upon slavery have been the main contributors to

the formation of both racial and class identities and still have an impact today. They have been

the reason for the embedding of inequality in the very foundations of modern societies. Ralph

and Singhal narrate this as "racial capitalism," a system where economic exploitation and racial

hierarchy are the main characters that together produce the same social and economic problems

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as before, but this time spread across generations (Ralph and Singhal 853). The relationship

between these phenomena unveils that in its historic quest for profit capitalism was dependent on

the racialized division of labor which slavery had established and as a result, the economic

progress of some came on the subjugation of others. Cottrol elaborates that property law had a

time when it considered enslaved individuals to be chattel, thus, it changed human lives into

things that could be easily exchanged and that had the power to influence the economic relations

even after the liberation (Cottrol 48). The legal norms thereby paved the way for inequality to

become a normal thing since racial distinctions were deeply rooted in the domains of property

and commerce. Glocal scholars Money and Xidas, influenced by the works of David Brion

Davis, assert that the Atlantic world’s revolutionary rhetoric of liberty was just a facade that was

hiding the global markets which were and still are reliant on coerced labor (Money and Xidas

32). The conundrum laid bare the moral hypocrisy that was at the core of Western modernity. To

this end, Du Bois’s economic empowerment model was not only striving for material equality

but also for moral health, thus, societal values had to be transformed to reflect the primacy of

human dignity over capital accumulation.

The cultural memory and historical narration became the highly debated areas that were

used by both races as a means of going back to reconstruct identity after the period of slavery. In

his explanation, Weiner points out that racial neoliberalism is the main agent of a certain kind of

“social forgetting” that not only gives a lesser role to slavery but also hides the fact that the

Western world which is the product of that injustice is still morally in the wrong because of

racial injustice (Weiner 331). As a result of this thorough erasure, collective memory is being

"cleaned," thus it is historical privilege as well as systemic inequality that continue without

people being able to or willing to look at them closely. Copeland sees it in this way that the

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present day are the visuals and arts that show the suffering of the black people and they are the

works of the blacks’ resistance, memory reclamation by which they invite the spectators to

recognize the denial of violence (Copeland 18). Those art forms put forward a challenge to the

leading cultural narratives that assume the possibility of reconciliation without the presence of

truth or the giving of account. According to Snyder, the issue of public history is that it

frequently depicts slavery as an event of the past without treating it as a structure which

continues to be the root of racial discrimination as well as social hierarchy (Snyder 26). Du

Bois’s concept of memory was totally different from that one of public history. For him,

remembering was an ethical deed which has the power to change one’s awareness into the

feeling of social responsibility. By facing denial and distortion, Du Bois was exhorting Black and

white Americans alike to experience moral reckoning, thus looking for reconciliation based on

truth, justice, and full acknowledgment of shared historical wounds.

Race as a social construct was created to reflect biological lies as well as ideological

manipulations that aimed to maintain the hierarchy during and after the times of slavery. Melish

explains that racial differentiation was the tool which New England reformers employed to

justify gradual emancipation, hence Blackness was depicted as being inherently dependent and

not capable of being a full citizen (Melish 66). These types of ideologies made it possible for

prejudice to be translated into social policy. Racial myths, according to Weiner, are sustained

through the educational systems that reproduce sanitized colonial histories and in doing so they

subtly revalidate racial hierarchy (Weiner 335). The survival of these myths is evidence of how

cultural institutions are still carrying on the epistemic legacy of slavery. Ralph and Singhal also

argue that racial capitalism is dependent on this ideological continuity thus the racial identity is

turned into a means for the economic stratification (Ralph and Singhal 859). Dubois’s

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intellectual move demolished these assumptions by providing a new definition of race as a

historical and moral, rather than biological, category. His pursuit of equality was aimed at

liberating both races from the fabricated stories that oppressed them and substituting them with a

shared commitment to truth and justice.

Art and representation notably established a new battleground for confronting the

afterlife of slavery and for recreating collective identity through the power of imagination and

cultural revival. Copeland asserts that the artistic interactions with the visual history of slavery

depict "site of blackness" not only as a deep scar but also as a well of creative power, thus, a

transformation of pain into a source of aesthetic and intellectual agency (Copeland 23). The act

of re-experiencing trauma in this way turns historical suffering into a fertile cultural self-

definition practice. Hudson and Namusoke argue that the artistic and spiritual practices of the

enslaved people through music, storytelling, and ritual were their resistance to the process of

dehumanizing and erasing them (Hudson and Namusoke 27). These performing arts not only

ensured the survival of cultural heritage but also proclaimed the basic human rights of the ones

who were denied personhood. Snyder points out that these cultural practices became the

groundwork for anti-slavery movements that through art, morality, and education reform,

demanded equal rights (Snyder 27). In his effort to promote education and artistic creation, Du

Bois saw culture as a moral instrument of liberation which was able not only to bring back the

dignity to the oppressed people but also to create among the privileged a feeling of empathy. In

this way, representation, through this transformative capacity, became a vehicle that educated

societies to look at each other with the help of shared humanity rather than of inherited prejudice.

The fact that racial inequality continues to be embedded in racialized structures of

modern institutions is an indication of how the inheritance of slavery was not wiped out but

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rather reconfigured. In his book, Moore thinks that mass incarceration is the main reason for a

“new Jim Crow,” thus hiding the reality of racial control through the language of criminal justice

(Moore 19). The link between the two reveals the capability of the oppressor to take different

forms in the present age. At the same time, Cottrol argues that the law system’s base in the

concept of property and racial hierarchy greatly influences the way justice is delivered (Cottrol

53). These examples of behavior show that even though people claim not to be racist, the

colorblind ideology is only a facade that hides systemic inequities embedded in law. Ralph and

Singhal maintain that racial capitalism changes the harshness-inflicted systems to ones that

generate profit from the continuation of racialized exploitation (Ralph and Singhal 864).

Dubois's focus on education and involvement in the community was far ahead of its time, he

understood that social freedom could only be achieved through structural change. What makes

his idea so perfect is that he sees the disintegration of subjugation as requiring the reform of

moral, legal, and economic systems that have been the mechanisms of racial oppression which

evolved over time.

The moral reconciliation between the races is still a project of the future that requires the

joint recognition of historical responsibility. Money and Xidas claim that the philosophical

contradiction between liberty and slavery that characterized the Enlightenment was the moral

failure of the time, a failure still haunting democratic societies (Money and Xidas 37). This

paradox unveils the reason why equality has to be more than just the political rights, it has to be

ethical introspection. Weiner demonstrates that denying slavery’s legacy is to commit an

epistemic injustice whereby dominant groups are allowed to construct the history without being

held accountable (Weiner 339). It is from recognizing this disproportion that the actual change

becomes possible. Cottrol points out that merely implementing legal reforms will not have the

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effect of wiping away the deeply engrained racial differences that have been with us for centuries

without at the same time re-educating the society culturally. According to Cottrol (57), Dubois’s

engagement with moral education was his way of addressing this very issue, thus envisioning

equality as an awakening of people’s feelings, reason, and ethics. The only way to be able to do

this is by rebuilding conscience alongside the structures of society the descendants of the both

the enslaved and enslavers will be able to bring to completion the emancipation process which

history began but never finished.

Completeness regarding the economic structure of the nation that time

The economic structure in the USA at that time did not allow the black people to have a

place in the economy. The economic aspect of life was dominated by the white people and all the

critical decisions were made by the masters (Dubois 111). The policies created during the period

restrained the black people from working for their benefit to the point where they could not

provide for themselves. Marable, (69) adds that the educational training that he created allowed

youth to participate in the basic civil rights demonstrations and organization, the Niagara

Movement” whose primary goal was to campaign for economic equality and justice. It, therefore,

shows how through his solution on education and civic equality was regarding fighting for

economic equality.

The isolation of African Americans from the economy after the war unmasked a

significant ethical and institutional imbalance in American capitalism. Dembinski maintains that

the functioning of any economy relies on certain moral assumptions, and when these are

transgressed, the markets lose their social purpose and the legitimacy they are accorded by

society (Dembinski 33). The Reconstruction era was a stark demonstration of that failure as

economic life was still dominated by the class that had enslaved others. Du Bois reveals that the

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newly freed people were, in many cases, caught in the vicious circle of exploitative

sharecropping arrangements that kept them in a state of economic dependence and denied them

access to the social sphere (Du Bois 118). Thus, freedom was only a word while inequality was

still the reality. Davis informs that a good number of policymakers were deliberately turning a

blind eye to the issue of land redistribution as they thought that the real independence of the

freedpeople would put an end to the economic control of the white (Davis 74). Consequently, it

was a democracy half-way through that made a show of liberty but still denied the material basis

of it to the majority. The call of Du Bois for education, civic engagement, and ownership of land

was an embodiment of moral reconstruction. His economic point of view made the connection

between prosperity and justice and indicated that without an ethical foundation, progress would

be only partial and exclusionary.

Industrialization in the late nineteenth century increased regional differences and changed

the nature of slavery, which became a national pattern of racial exclusion. Byron reveals that

industrial expansion in the North was heavily reliant on the agricultural exploitation of the South,

thus creating a system that economically disadvantaged Black people in terms of both labor and

ownership (Richardson 41). The relationship was a clear indication of how the nation's

prosperity was constructed on racial inequality. According to Du Bois, the newly freed people

were deliberately left out of unions and skilled jobs, thus ensuring that the industrial wealth was

the white workers' dividend while the African Americans were still engaged in low-wage labor

(Du Bois 125). These structural impediments made it impossible to create an inclusive working

class and thus the hierarchy that slavery had established was preserved. Byrd and Clayton,

likewise, contend that poor living conditions and hazardous labor contributed directly to the

increased death rates among African Americans and thus economic injustice became a public

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health issue (Byrd and Clayton 117). These different angles put together, show that the period of

Reconstruction was unable to give economic justice as racial capitalism was still the main factor

that decided who could prosper and who could not.

The legal and political systems that criminalized Black labor and mobility also reinforced

economic injustice after emancipation. Moore explains that new laws such as vagrancy and

contract enforcement statutes made it necessary for many freedpeople to return to forcibly

controlled labor situations under the pretense of punishment (Moore 27). Freedom in this way

became a kind of surveillance and control. Du Bois refers to this phenomenon as the “wage of

whiteness,” explaining how poor whites were given some symbolic privileges to help them stay

loyal to the racial hierarchy instead of showing class solidarity (Du Bois 132). These privileges

guaranteed that the economic system would continue to be racially segmented, thus, ensuring the

safety of the elites. According to Davis, the northern leaders were against the proposals for land

redistribution because they regarded independent Black farmers as a destabilizing factor of

industrial labor (Davis 78). The connection between race, labor, and capital led to the emergence

of a new form of dependence which was difficult to get rid of. Du Bois’s argument against this

system is still very much applicable today as it uncovers how inequality can survive even under

the guise of freedom if structural barriers are still in place.

The economic inequalities during Reconstruction which were also influenced by gender.

Dudden indicates that the labor of Black women was the mainstay of both household and

agricultural economies, however, it was still invisible in wage systems and political discourse

(Dudden 81). Their being left out exposed the gendered aspect of economic oppression. Du Bois

argued that the progress of the race was dependent on the empowerment of women in both the

public and private spheres (Du Bois 140). In his acknowledgment of women's work, he extended

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the concept of economic justice and he was ahead of time when later feminist movements saw

the connection between freedom and fair labor. Richardson states that the economic enslavement

of Black women was a tool used by white elites to keep the labor force divided and to control it

easily (Richardson 49). These intersections of race and gender reveal that economic inequality

was not only a structural issue but also a cultural one, which kept alive the stereotypes of

dependency. The acknowledgment of women's economic contributions was thus indispensable to

the realization of the democratic vision of Reconstruction.

One of the contradictions was about morality of the economic system which also led to

the conflicts of philosophy regarding the meaning of freedom. Dembinski believes that the

present-day economy is partial when it only sees people as instruments of production instead of

treating them as moral agents (Dembinski 37). Such a perception is similar to the idea of Du Bois

who saw emancipation as a change of the people's morals rather than just a legal act. Du Bois

considered land ownership and education as the main stages towards freedom since they gave the

freedpeople the power to determine their own future (Du Bois 142). Their continuous isolation

from these chances proved that freedom without resources was nothing but a dream. Davis states

that the decision-makers ignored the fact that economic independence was a precondition for

citizenship and dignity (Davis 83). These mistakes put African Americans in situations where

they were dependent on the same economic system of slavery that was the root of their past.

According to Du Bois, completeness was about coming up with an economy that was as

concerned with moral development and human potential as it was with production and profit.

Practicability of Dubois’ Solutions

The solutions he provided also were practical. The literary society of the black people in

the United States today and the racial balance that exist is based on some of his solutions. The

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equality regarding employment opportunities, the right to vote and the right to education is quite

practical in the modern society. Also, his ability to mobilize the youth throughout the protests he

staged during his leadership shows how the solutions he provided had changed the lives of the

people (Dubois 118). It created awareness, and lead to the formation of nation-wide movements

such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). These

resulted in the removal of all the legal barriers that had been put in place to bar the black

population from enjoying their political, economic and social rights.