Poverty, homelessness and exclusion from banking, job training, education or business formation were the realities facing most African-Americans after emancipation. Some Black communities managed to flourish in Northern states such as New York, California, Pennsylvania and Ohio. But most lived in the South, where schools, banks, housing and essential services for Black Americans were nearly nonexistent.
The task was enormous: Someone had to build these foundations from scratch.
The first attempt came with the Freedmen’s Bureau, a government effort established by Congress in the final days of the Civil War, with the support of President Lincoln, to aid Black freedpeople and poor white refugees. The bureau did valiant work—building schools for Black children, supporting land-grant universities, providing housing aid and expanding access to capital. But these efforts were short-lived. The Freedmen’s Bureau was abolished in 1872, just seven years after its founding, its work barely having made a dent.