“Emancipated” African Americans

This chapter looks at the ways in which settler colonial interests have shaped social relations and governmental policies since the abolition of slavery. Following the Civil War, the gains of the Reconstruction era were quickly rolled back as formerly enslaved persons were geographically contained, subjected to social violence and terror, criminalized, and forced into convict labor. A pervasive system of apartheid was implemented and not legally dismantled until the 1950s, and racial segregation remains pervasive today. Despite the changes brought by the civil rights era, with deindustrialization African Americans have increasingly been viewed as a “surplus” population. One result has been the pervasive policing of Black communities and mass incarceration.