Before, during, and after the Civil War, conditions for non-slaves and freed African Americans were directly related to the status of the institution of slavery. So long as the majority of black people in the South were enslaved, many of those who were free prospered. During the war, following the Emancipation Proclamation, African Americans were in the unusual position of being technically free but, for the most part, having nowhere to go. Until the war ended, their economic survival often meant continuing their pre-war lives under only slightly different conditions--free, but still dependent. Reconstruction, which followed the war, was expected to change this situation. But, since Reconstruction finally offered almost no compensation to the freed slaves, their free labor and greater opportunities turned out to mean little at first. Life for freed slaves was far better than it had been, but was also far worse than expected. Yet, even though black labor achieved only relative freedom, black community began to grow in ways that had been nearly impossible under slavery.
Free African Americans accounted for less than one percent of the black population of the Deep South States before the Civil War. Free blacks lived mostly in the cities and were usually unskilled workers. "The men were concentrated on the street-work gangs, wharves, and docks and the women worked as domestics or laundresses." In some of the more industrialized cities of the border states, free African Americans also worked in tobacco or iron processing factories. On occasion, urban slaves were even allowed to sell their free time, and, eventually, buy their freedom. But, there were also a number of free black people who earned a much better living. There were a number of artisans and skilled workers, and "in every city successful blacks were among the leading barbers, draymen, and livery-stable operators."
The number of better-off African Americans...