James Lee Dickey: An Analysis of One African-American's Leadership in Jim Crow Texas

Freedmen's Bureau

Even before the end of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln had enacted the Freedman's Bureau for the Relief of Freedmen and Refugees for the first time entwining the federal government and the social welfare of its citizens. The Bureau was to aid the transition from slave to freedom for blacks in the South. It was intended to have only two concerns – the distribution of abandoned land to freedmen, and the provision of relief to the destitute in the form of food, clothing, and fuel. Rumor was that the Bureau would provide each freed slave with 40 acres and a mule! In reality, the tasks implemented were: 1) providing justice for former slaves whose issues had been dismissed by southern courts 2) adjudicating labor contracts between black labor and landowners and 3) providing education for the newly freed slaves. 

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