Publication Date

Summer 2020

Advisor(s) - Committee Chair

Jennifer Hanley (Director), Tamara Van Dyken, Dorothea Browder

Degree Program

Department of History

Degree Type

Master of Arts

Abstract

The racial violence that occurred in Memphis, Tennessee on the first three days of May 1866 was no sudden accident. Following the abolition of slavery and the fall of the Confederacy, race riots and racial violence in general intensified as a result of fluctuating race relations in southern states whose social hierarchies were built upon the degradation and supposed inferiority of blacks. The Memphis Massacre of 1866 was one such expression of white anger and bitterness over the disenfranchisement of former Confederates, the increasing numbers of educated, wealthy blacks coming into Memphis, and the disturbance of the old status quo in Tennessee. The violence that erupted through the streets of Memphis resulted in the brutal deaths of dozens of African American men, women, and children. The massacre itself, as well as the shattered state of race relations in Tennessee, grabbed the attention of the entire country and ushered in legislation that would, for the first time, act as a stepping stone for later movements toward full equality and freedom for blacks in the southern United States. Memphis, a city divided and broken after the war, became the center of the most sensational event since the surrender of the Confederacy one year prior. By analyzing reactions to the Memphis Massacre through the use of newspapers from 1866 from different regions of Tennessee, this act of racial violence can be used as a window through which to view post-Civil War race relations in the state of Tennessee.

Disciplines

African American Studies | History | Social History

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