UNITED STATES HISTORY AND THE CONSTITUTION South Carolina Standard USHC-3.4

Expanded Democracy During Reconstruction, democracy was expanded as the federal government protected the rights of the freedmen. However when the federal government abandoned their role of protector, democracy was compromised and the rights of African Americans were limited by southern state governments.

Intimidation During Reconstruction, Anti- African American factions such as the Ku Klux Klan were organized to intimidate black voters in the South. African Americans were able to vote only with the protection of federal troops stationed in the South under military Reconstruction.

Too Few Troops However there were never enough federal troops to protect the African American voter from both economic and physical intimidation and violence, including lynchings.

Solid South When white voters were pardoned and returned to lead or, as they termed it, ‘redeem’ southern governments, Republican office holders were gradually replaced. Southern governments would remain under the control of white Democrats and be known as the “Solid South” until the Civil Rights era.

Economic Depression Increasingly, the corruption of the Grant administration, economic depression in the North, the growing interest in western settlement and economic growth replaced the nation’s interest in preserving the gains made in the Civil War. At the same time, newspaper reports of continuing violence towards freedmen undermined the belief among the northern public that things would ever be different in the South.

Compromise of 1877 The resolve of the public and Congress to protect the freedman waned in the face of continuing resistance of southerners to granting equal citizenship to African Americans. The disputed election of 1876 led to the compromise of compromise of 1877 The resulting withdrawal of federal troops and their protection of the freedman brought an end to Reconstruction.

Results, Temporary Thus, the effect of Reconstruction was temporary and African Americans were left to fend for themselves in an increasingly hostile and unregulated environment.

Southern States Take Back Rights In the two decades after the end of Reconstruction, the rights promised to the African Americans in the 14th and 15th Amendments and protected by the national government during Reconstruction were gradually rescinded by southern state governments.

Political Wedge Southern whites used race to drive a political wedge between poor black farmers and poor white farmers when farmers protested for political change in the 1890s. Southern states passed laws requiring African American and whites to use separate facilities.

Plessy v. Ferguson Segregation was upheld by the Supreme Court in the ‘separate but equal’ ruling of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), that negated the equal protection provisions of the 14th Amendment and hastened the enactment of more Jim Crow laws. Plessy v. Ferguson Jim Crow laws

Legitimized Discrimination The federal government which had once championed the rights of African Americans during Reconstruction had not only abandoned them but now, though the Court, legitimized discrimination against them. Segregated by law, African Americans were relegated to second class citizenship in a society that was separate but not equal.

Poll Taxes Poll taxes and literacy tests all but eliminated the effectiveness of the 15th Amendment for African Americans, while the grandfather clause assured that whites who could not read or pay the tax were able to vote. Without the vote, African Americans could not protect themselves through their state governments

Burned Out Land As cotton exhausted the soil and cotton prices fell, sharecroppers and tenant farmers found themselves in increasingly difficult economic conditions.sharecroppers

Textile Mills When textile mills opened in the South in the late 1880s, African Americans were discriminated against in hiring. Unable to get other work in the South, many fell farther into poverty and some migrated to the cities of the North.