African Americans emerged from Reconstruction in the 1870s with the protection of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments. They took their places as free and increasingly successful citizens in the 1880s. During that decade in the South, African Americans voted, served on juries, won public office, pursued education, and improved their economic status. In response to these successes, in the 1890s, white Southerners undertook the systematic implementation of white supremacy under a regime that became known as Jim Crow. By 1910 African Americans in the South were effectively disenfranchised and segregated from whites in public spaces. Analyzing primary resources from the Library of Congress and the National Humanities Center, this seminar explores how this happened, why it happened, and how African Americans responded.
