Objectives Assess how whites created a segregated society in the South and how African Americans responded. Analyze efforts to limit immigration and the effects. Compare the situations of Mexican Americans and of women to those of other groups.

Terms and People Jim Crow laws – laws that kept blacks and whites segregated poll tax – a tax which voters were required to pay to vote literacy test – a test, given at the polls to see if a voter could read, used to disenfranchise black citizens grandfather clause – a law which allowed a person to vote only if his ancestors had voted prior to 1866, also used to disenfranchise black citizens

Terms and People (continued) Booker T. Washington – the most famous black leader during the late 19th century, he encouraged African Americans to build up their economic resources through hard work W.E.B. Du Bois – a black leader in the late 19th century who disagreed with Washington and argued that blacks should demand full and immediate equality Ida B. Wells – an African American teacher who bought a newspaper and embarked on a lifelong crusade against the practice of lynching 3

Terms and People (continued) Las Gorras Blancas – a group of Mexican Americans who protested their loss of land in the Southwest by targeting the property of large ranch owners

How were the civil and political rights of certain groups in America undermined during the years after Reconstruction? In the course of the Gilded Age, the equal rights extended to African Americans during Reconstruction were narrowed. This move away from equality for all had a lasting impact on society in the United States.

Federal troops were removed from the South in 1876. Ways in which blacks’ right to vote was restricted in the South: poll taxes literacy tests grandfather clauses violence Segregation via Jim Crow laws became the norm, and blacks lost voting rights.

The many strategies used to keep black voters away from the polls were very effective.

In addition to losing their voting rights, blacks also faced widespread segregation in the South and in the North. Still, African Americans refused to accept their status as second-class citizens. Several important leaders emerged and called for equality. The constitutionality of Jim Crow laws was upheld by the Supreme Court in the 1896 case Plessy v. Ferguson.

Booker T. Washington was the most famous black leader of the late 19th century. Washington believed that black citizens should accommodate themselves to segregation and build up their own economic resources through hard work. 9

Some disagreed with Booker T. Washington. Du Bois felt the burden of achieving equality should not rest on the shoulders of African Americans alone. W.E.B. Du Bois argued that blacks should demand full and equal rights immediately. Another black leader was Ida B. Wells, who devoted her life to the crusade against lynching. 10

In the Southwest, four out of five Mexican Americans lost their land after the Mexican-American War, despite a treaty which guaranteed their property rights. Las Gorras Blancas, a Mexican American group, fought for their rights by inflicting property damage on landowners and publishing grievances in their own newspaper.

Chinese immigrants also faced racial prejudice in the West at this time. Faced with severe job discrimination, some Chinese-Americans started their own businesses.

Prior to the Civil War, women played a large role in reform movements, including the call to abolish slavery. Leaders wanted to further the rights of women and were disappointed when women were not included in the 14th and 15th Amendments. Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton formed the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1869.

Susan B. Anthony voted in an election in 1872 and was arrested. Awaiting trial, she toured the nation, delivering a powerful speech on the issue. Activists did not secure women’s suffrage during the 19th century. 14