The Louisiana constitutional conventions of 1845 and 1852 proved the last of the antebellum era. They were both heavily influenced by Whig and Democratic partisanship, first over economic issues addressed in 1845 following the financial collapse of the previous decade, and in 1852 after the staple-crop booms spurred the economy, and also by the sharpening of external abolitionist critiques, which heightened the convention’s concern over protecting Louisiana’s “slaveholding interests.” Political and social negotiations between property-holding white males and white male democracy leaders fought for balance in both the 1845 and 1852 conventions. In my recent article in the Journal of the Early Republic analyzing those two constitutional conventions, those tensions loomed large in both of Louisiana’s conventions, and revealed the social and political tensions that shaped the state for decades. Moreover, this brief piece reveals the relentless hardships endured by enslaved Blacks before and during the Civil War and those of freed Blacks after emancipation.

The 1845 convention emerged at a time when both cotton and sugar profits had collapsed, crippling the state’s economy. Louisiana Democrats went on the offensive against banks and railroads and emerged as advocates for imposing a tight rein on state spending and flatly prohibiting state subsidies for businesses. By 1852, however, a rebounding Pelican state economy generated renewed support for aggressive banking practices and robust railroad growth. Moreover, after 1852, white supporters of the state’s staple economy invested more heavily than ever in enslaved Black labor. Louisiana’s confidence in the profits (and capital) from its enslaved workers sustained public spending during the boom. These two very different conventions produced very different results.

Although Reconstruction offered a glimmer of optimism for Black Louisianans, the benefits would be short-lived. Image: Extract from the reconstructed Constitution of the state of Louisiana, with portraits of the distinguished members of the Convention & Assembly, A.D. 1868, Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

After the emancipation of enslaved Blacks at the end of the American Civil War as well as the devastating impact of the Confederate defeat, Louisiana whites held only slim hopes for optimism during Reconstruction. Once white southerners regained political control of the state in 1874, however, free Blacks confronted hard choices and embittered white landowners. The postbellum period left free Blacks only nominally free, and even personal choices around family and which plots of land they worked remained largely limited by the will of white landowners. By the World War I era however, the opportunity to move north to seek economic opportunity and escape white oppression in the South sparked outmigration of Blacks from Louisiana. Black outmigration focused on northern cities, and especially Chicago, until a reverse transition began in the World War II era.

Additionally, over time, southern states passed laws that further limited freedom and opportunity for Blacks in the South, and the persistence of Black poverty remained a burden down to the World War II era if not longer. When describing the state of Black political and economic wherewithal after the end of Reconstruction, eminent historian Eric Foner rightly identified the condition of Black southerners after Reconstruction era as one of holding “Nothing But Freedom.” For more than three-quarters of a century after emancipation, changes in the lives of Black Louisianans remained severely limited.

“Negro school, Destrehan, Louisiana,” 1938. FSA photograph by Russell Lee. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Ultimately, the New Deal era and World War II opened new economic and political opportunities that changed the lives of Black Louisianans. Federal activism launched by the New Deal later joined the emergence of World War II economic activity and created more and better jobs for Louisianans (white and Black) across an impoverished American South. President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal of the 1930s opened new economic opportunities for Blacks, and after the emergence of World War II, the creation of better jobs for Black Louisianans raised living standards and uplifted some impoverished Blacks across the American South. After World War II, the energy of the New South and the postwar economic boom continued opening new opportunities for Blacks in Louisiana and other parts of the South.

By the 1960s, Black Americans relocated in significant numbers to the American South (including Louisiana), partly because of new job opportunities in the latest “New South,” and partly because the triumph of civil and voting rights legislation for Blacks in the American South. Black Americans who willingly migrated south to seek the new opportunities as well as longstanding family connections reversed decades of the southern outmigration to the North. By the 1980s, however, most Deep South states, including Louisiana, steadily became dominated politically by conservative Republicans, whose leadership revealed limited energy for encouraging Black opportunity.  Like so many other Deep South states, Louisiana sought white conservative domination of the state and left more Blacks with only remnants of political power.

The tensions that loomed large in the 1845 and 1852 conventions would set the stage for the next century or more of Louisiana’s political actions and the ongoing challenges faced by Black citizens in the years since emancipation. More particularly, this history contextualizes the story of how Black citizens began their adjustment to emancipation while responding with resilience to many hardships. Black citizens with better education and solid incomes have tended to participate in the helping professions or in other leadership roles that create a community of uplift in the African American South, despite Deep South states’ lower per-capita incomes and levels of education overall. Yet still, nearly a century since the New Deal, a legacy of subpar education, lower paying jobs, and lack of education has limited the overall opportunities of Black Louisianans in what remains one of the poorest American states.