Address of a Convention of Negroes in Alexandria Virginia

The members of the Convention of Colored citizens of the State of Virginia met in August of 1865 to

discuss the new problems that were facing in the newly freed south. Even though the slaves were no

longer forced to work on plantations for their former masters the freedmen complained that they were

still not safe.  The convention cited the fact that there were now 200,000 colored troops in service of

US  a quote from an escaped confederate prisoner saying that whenever we saw a black face we felt

sure of a friend. The former slaves feared for their safety from the men who had controlled their lives

for so long. The convention asked why four fifths of the former rebels were all the sudden being

pardoned and amnestied. These men had taken vows  to the Union after the war but as the

Convention already knew the men who took these vows had no intentions of honoring the promised

they had made to the Federal Government.  The convention feared the legislature that would come

from these former confederates ever finding their way back into office. The convention asked for the

continued presence of the military in order to make sure that they would remain safe from the

enemies that were returning to the south. We know from our studies that the fears expressed by

the convention were accurate and the newly freed people of the south had little chance to do anything

without a military presence around at all times. While voting rights were enforced early on in the

south it did not take long for the persecution of freed blacks to begin all over again as soon as

military presence left the area. The Black codes were forced on the south leading to a hundred years

segregation and unfair legislation which would effectively eliminate any of the rights that the people

had been given shortly after the war. The many problems that the convention cited all would

eventually occur and the south would suffer for it.