Untitled Quiz

Defeat of Reconstruction

• Reconstruction ended in 1877, leading to a decline in the rights of African Americans.
• Southern states changed their constitutions to enforce segregation post-Reconstruction.

De Jure Segregation

• After the 1876 election and compromise of 1877, some states changed their laws and constitutions to enforce segregation.
• Black voting rights were restricted through poll taxes, literacy tests, and grandfather clauses.
• African Americans faced racial violence, including lynching, from former Confederates, political terrorist groups like the Ku Klux Klan, and others who supported white supremacy.

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

• The Supreme Court's Plessy v. Ferguson ruling established the "separate but equal" doctrine.
• This ruling became the basis for racial segregation.
• In reality, "separate but equal" resulted in separate and unequal resources, facilities, and rights for African Americans.

Jim Crow Laws

• Jim Crow laws were local and state statutes, mainly in the Southern states, supported by the Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) ruling.
• These laws included restrictions on African American men's voting rights, enforced segregation in hospitals, transportation, schools, and cemeteries for Black and White citizens.
• Jim Crow laws started as a slur in the 1830s against African Americans from a performance by white entertainer, Thomas Dartmouth Rice.
• The performance, which involved blackface and exaggerated speech/dance, mocked African Americans spreading harmful stereotypes.
• Jim Crow laws were overturned during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

The Nadir

• African American Studies scholars refer to the period from the end of Reconstruction to the start of World War II as the "nadir" of American race relations.
• This era represented the worst public acts of racism in US history, including lynching and mob violence.

Activism

• African American journalists and writers exposed the racism behind Southern lynch laws.
• African American activists resisted attacks on their freedom using actions like trolley boycotts.
• Activists also used sympathetic writers in the press to expose the mistreatment and murders of African Americans.