Back to Segregation
During Reconstruction, the period following the Civil War which lasted from 1865 to 1877, state legislatures in the South began insituting new laws separating Blacks from Whites. The system of segregation eventually became known as "Jim Crow", but first, there were significant events in history that led up to it.
The Compromise of 1877 provided the Negro with protection in all his rights. This in itself brought about opposition among Southern leaders that would later surface violently. In 1865, President Johnson had adopted the notorious "Black Codes," laws that intended to create a system of peonage or apprenticeships for Blacks but ironically resembled slavery instead. One of these laws stated that it should not be lawful for any freedman, free Negro or mulatto with intermarry with any white person. Another one, known as the "car movement," made it illegal for any railroad employee to allow Blacks to ride in any first-class passenger cars used by whites; this one was first passed in Mississippi in November of 1865. In 1867 the Reconstruction Act was passed, and numerous demonstrations against segregation and Jim Crowism led to the Supreme Court's enactment of the Federal Civil Rights Act of 1875. This Act gave Blacks the right to enter hotels, trains, buses and other public places from which they had previously been banned. Ironically, Negroes often chose to refrain from testing their new rights in order to avoid painful rebuff of insult from whites who still supported segregation.
In what was known as Redemption, Redeemers ssought to overthrow Reconstruction in the name of white supremacy. This unstable period preceeded the arrival of Jim Crow and disenfranchisement, but there was still some flexibility and tolerance in race relations between 1870 and 1900.
By 1898 South Carolina had incurred Jim Crow in the form of the car movement. The South's adoption of extreme racism can be connected to the relaxation of opposition that had previously kept racism in check. This opposition had included Northern liberals, Southern conservatives and Southern radicals. The Supreme Court also played a role in weakening resistance to segregation through a series of decisions that drastically cut the privileges Blacks had secured under federal law. Among these decisions were the Slaughter House Cases of 1873, United States vs. Reese and United States vs. Cruikshank and Civil Rights Cases of 1883, which ruled the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional. Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896) used "separate but equal" as justification for segregation. Williams vs. Mississippi (1898) allowed for proscription, segregation and disenfranchisement.
Everywhere, racism became acceptable and popular, and the belief that the "Anglo-Saxon" or "Caucasian" was the superior of all other races stood strong. This climax of social tensions was the result of economic, political and social frustrations.
During this time, white supremacy, Negrophobia and race chauvinism catalyzed the deterioration of race relations. Hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan, the Knights of the White Camelia and the Silver Shirts succeeded in intimidating the disenfranchised Negroes, usually through such acts as beatings, shootings or lynchings. Consequently, Blacks became more prone to aggressive mob action. According to Negro author Charles W. Chestnut in 1903, "the rights of Negroes are at a lower ebb than at any other time during the thirty-five years of their freedom, and the race prejudice more intense and uncompromising."
Back to Segregation