The Freedmen's Bureau and Negro Education in Florida

Richardson, Joe M.

doi:10.2307/2293965

Cited by 2 publications

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“…Despite serving as a vital source of material relief for newly freedpeople after the Civil War, the Freedmen's Bureau's activities were often just as coercive as they were liberating. The Bureau served as something of a middleman for the postwar labour market (Richardson 1963;Neal and Kremm 1989) and enforced norms regarding sexuality and gender relations (Kandaswamy 2021). While performing these coercive activities, the Bureau faced widespread oppositionnot because of its coercive behaviour, but because of perceptions that its services provided advantages for Black people at the expense of White people (Olds 1963;Phillips 1966).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The balance between the Bureau operating as a relief agency and a means for labour coercion varied from state to state (Richardson 1963), shaped by the administrative quality and preferences of state assistant commissioners. One such assistant commissioner, Edward Gregory, speaking with planters and newly freedpeople, emphasised the Bureau’s role in uniting Whites with Blacks, or “capital with labor” (Neal and Kremm 1989), highlighting both the Bureau’s labour-coercive function and the racialised class structure it had set out to reify.…”

Section: The Freedmen’s Bureau and Tanfmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Institutional legacies and temporary assistance for needy families spending decisions: the case of the Freedmen’s Bureau

Lowder,

Hobert,

Shoub

2023

J. Pub. Pol.

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Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) was born out of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act in the backdrop of highly racialised and otherizing fears about the mythical “welfare queen.” However, the perception of Black exploitation of public benefits to White detriment is not exclusively a modern phenomenon. One of its original manifestations can be found in White reactions to the Freedmen’s Bureau during the post-Civil War period of Reconstruction. We therefore argue that state decisions to allocate spending towards cash assistance and coercive programmes designed to motivate work participation and regulate private behaviour are shaped by the imprint of this historic institution. Using TANF spending data from 2001 to 2019 and data on Freedmen’s Bureau field offices, we find evidence of a link between these offices’ historic prevalence and contemporary, coercive allocations. However, we find little evidence that this link extends to spending towards cash assistance.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Freedmen’s Bureau and Tanfmentioning

confidence: 99%