Chapter 4
5 - Segregation
WARM-UP
Who dominated politics during the time of
Reconstruction?
Republicans
What goals did they have?
Break the power of the wealthy planters
Make sure African Americans rights were protected
The End of Reconstruction
Radical Republicans Lose Power
• By the 1870s Radical Republicans
were losing power and corruption
caused people to lose faith in their
policies.
• New technologies (telephone) had
northerners looking to the future.
• They decided to let the South run
their own governments again.
Amnesty Act of 1872
• Congress passed the Amnesty Act in 1872
• Amnesty Act- restored the right to vote
to nearly all white Southerners.
• Southern states became predominantly
Democratic.
AT THE SAME TIME
Threats of violence kept
African Americans from
voting.
Financial Panic Swept the Nation
• In the 1870’s major fires in Boston & Chicago hurt insurance
industry.
• Depression lasted 5 years.
• Unemployment & starvation followed
• the North lost even more interest
Compromise of 1877
• Marked the end of Reconstruction
• Samuel Tilden (Dem) wins popular vote
vs
• Rutherford B. Hayes (Rep) wins electoral
vote
• 4 states are disputed – all go to Hayes
• Hayes (Republican) becomes president
• Was a deal made?
• Removes federal troops from the south
– ending Reconstruction
• Federal money is used to rebuild
southern railroads
Impact of the End of Reconstruction
• Conservatives (Democrats) gained power, dominating southern politics
• African Americans begin to lose rights
• The rise of the KKK during Reconstruction set black progress back to
where it was pre-civil war.
STOP~THINK~DISCUSS
• How do you think Southern Democrats
resentful of equality will try and return
the south to the way it was before?
• (Slavery is illegal, they can not get that
back.)
Voting Restrictions
• Poll Taxes- required voters to
pay a fee each time they
voted
• Literacy Tests- required
voters to read and explain a
section of the Constitution.
• Most freedmen could not read
or write.
• Grandfather Clause- if a
white man’s father or
grandfather could vote, then
so could he
• The way around Lit. Tests for
poor whites
Segregation
• Segregation- legal separation of
races.
• Jim Crow Laws- laws that
separated blacks and whites in
schools, restaurants, theaters,
trains, hospitals, streetcars,
playgrounds, hospitals, and even
cemeteries.
• Plessy v. Ferguson- court case
which ruled that segregation was
legal.
• (This would be legal as long as both
facilities were equal, however this
was rarely the case.)
African American response
 Ida B Wells – launched a
campaign against lynching
 moved to Chicago for
 Lynching = Executed by hanging
without a legal trial
 Mary Church Terrell – battled
against lynching, racism, and
sexism
 Helped found NAACP
African American Response
 Booker T Washington –
proposed African Americans
concentrate on achieving
economic goals over political
ones
 W.E.B. Du Bois – concerned
with protecting and exercising
voting rights
Exit out
What is the long term impact that voting restrictions and segregation
will have on the South?