History Minute (070): Andrew Johnson favored White interests to the detriment of Black people.

Andrew Johnson was the Vice President when Lincoln was assassinated, and he then became President. He became an obstacle to fulfilling the intent of Congress to provide for civil rights for Black people. For example:

• He vetoed bills to help Black people.
• He allowed Confederate States to come back into the Union without their guaranteeing equal rights to Blacks.

Consequently, southern states did things like:

• Enact "black codes" that made the freed slaves who continued to work plantations more like serfs.
• Made it illegal for freed people to rent or lease farmland.
• Made it a crime for freed people working under contracts to break them.
• Decreed that orphaned Black children and those whose parents were poor should be put into forced labor -- which were called "apprenticeships" to make them sound beneficial. Girls were forced to stay until age 18; boys until age 21. 
• Children were taken from their families despite family protests. When parents sought to reclaim them, the courts often favored White interests.
• They rarely got the education or skills training (beyond the menial tasks they were performing), medical care, or fair wages that were promised.
• If they fled, they received corporal punishment.
• The very people who formerly enslaved them or their parents often became their masters in the apprenticeships, and used them to rebuild their war-torn plantations.

The House impeached Johnson in 1868, but the Senate failed to convict and remove him from office.

Read more! 

A People's History of the United States 

Howard Zinn 

Get your copy — Support your local bookstores by shopping Bookshop.org — https://bookshop.org/p/books/a-people-s-history-of-the-united-states-1492-to-present-revised-and-updated-edition-howard-zinn/7e243f9bc6464a2e?ean=9780062397348&next=t 

 — or — 

find it at Apple Books: https://books.apple.com/us/book/a-peoples-history-of-the-united-states/id1046889377