JUNE 16, 1865:
Former slave-turned-Baptist Minister Fields Cook and four
other African-American leaders meet with Andrew Johnson in Washington D.C.,
bringing forth a list of grievances against the State authorities in Virginia.
Cook
tells the President:
Under the old system we
had the protection of our masters, who were financially interested in our
physical welfare. That protection is now withdrawn, and our old masters have
become our enemies, who seek not only to oppress our people, but thwart the
designs of the Federal Government and of Northern benevolent associations in
our behalf. We cannot appeal to the laws of Virginia for protection, for the
old negro laws still prevail; and, besides, the oath of a colored man against a
white man will not be received in our State courts, so that we have nowhere to
go for protection and justice but to that power which made us free.
They
specify five points:
(1) Interference
with black churches
(2) The
perpetuation of the prewar pass system without which blacks are not permitted
to travel between points for work or pleasure
(3) Police
brutality, beatings and killings
(4) The
persistence of the “Mayor’s Court” a segregated justice system applied only to
blacks
(5) Abuses
by Federal officers
Johnson
assures them that changes will be made, but his words are hollow, for in an
interview given just around this time, President Johnson explains his
Reconstruction plan. He calls his policy “Restoration” and lays out an
extremely lenient set of conditions for white Southerners to abide by in order
participate in the national life. The newly freed do not merit the President’s
attention. Indeed, during the interview he states unequivocally that, “White
men alone must manage the South.”
Under
Johnson’s Restoration Plan, most white Southerners reclaim their prewar
property and their appointed and elected offices in short order. Before long, the postbellum South begins to
eerily resemble the antebellum South.
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