Most blacks had been denied any chance for a formal education during slavery. With Emancipation came the opportunity for some to attend classes at schools set up by Northern missionary societies and the Federal Freedmen’s Bureau. In 1867 and 1868, Congress required the former Confederate states to enact new Constitutions that, among other things, provided for the free education of African American children. One key point of contention at these conventions was whether schools should be legally segregated by race.
The December 3, 1867 Montgomery Advertiser had this speech from the state constitutional convention arguing that integration was really discrimination against white children. The delegate, a “Mr. Speed,” was a conservative sitting in a constitutional convention that includes many black delgates. This was the first time in the state’s history that people of color had been allowed to run for statewide elected office.
The basic argument made by Speed is that mixed-race schools discriminate against white children because white parents will not send their children to them which will result in white children not attending school. It is a desperate and convoluted argument, but such were the contortions that white supremacists had to resort to when blacks were allowed to serve in legislative bodies.
You can read the Journal of the Alabama Constitutional Convention here.
Note on the Feature Photo: The photo at the top of the article is a detail from a class photo of the 1872 Alabama Legislature. This legislature was elected under the new state constitution developed in 1867 and ratified in 1868. The large number of African American elected legislators is notable in a state where they had been barred from holding office just five years earlier.
I recently learned that the 1872 photo was used again in 1928 to warn white Alabamans not to vote for Republicans in 1928 because it would mean the end of white rule of the state which had been reestablished at the end of Reconstruction. As it says in the poster below, “If you believe in White Supremacy, vote the straight Democratic Ticket.”
Follow Reconstruction Blog on Social Media:
