Black Learning, Land, and Labor in Southern Reconstruction

Jerzy Sobieraj

Abstract

The chapter pictures freedmen's situation in the field of education and analyzes the execution of their rights to own land and have access to the Reconstruction labor market. The Author interprets these spheres of activities as the field of social and racial conflicts. Irrespective of the constitutional guarantees of social equality of all American citizens, many white inhabitants of the American South attempts to limit basic rights of ex-slaves, trying to fight against this new competetive group on the post-Civil War labor market, often being driven by sheer racism.