Life After Slavery
 What do you recall about social changes that came
about during the era of reconstruction?
 Write predictions about African Americans’
experiences during those years.
 Southern states, where most African Americans
lived, passed laws that deprived African
Americans of the vote and forbade them from
mixing with whites in public.
 Segregation made it extremely difficult for African
Americans to improve their lives..
 You may think that African Americans’ day-to-day
lives changed greatly after the end of slavery.
 But, Although African Americans no longer
endured some of the tragedies of slavery, such as
the breakup of families, many were forced to sign
harsh labor contracts with former slaveholders that
committed them to performing the same
backbreaking agricultural labor and even living in
former slave quarters.
Life After Slavery
 Was life for African Americans after slavery
significantly different than during slavery?
Why or why not?
 African Americans formally gained greater rights
and freedom after slavery ended. Discrimination
nevertheless impeded the progress of African
Americans as they sought to participate in
American society.
 Many African Americans living in the post-Reconstruction
South were very poor. Some left seeking a better life in the
North in what came to be called the “exodus.”
 Many African Americans joined the Populist Party. Southern
Democrats worried that poor whites would join the Populist
Party as well, creating a strong coalition. Southern
Democrats used scare tactics to win back the poor white vote
by warning that support for Populism would cause “Black
Republican” rule in the South.
 Election officials made voting hard for African Americans.
Discussion
 What unintended result did joining the Populist
Party have for African American farmers?
 Because it feared the power of united African
American and poor white farmers, the Southern
Democratic Party began to look for ways to
disfranchise African Americans, setting the stage
for segregation.
Discrimination
 Discrimination has several meanings. It derives
from the Latin word discrimen, meaning
“distinction.” A neutral meaning for the term is
“the perception of the unique features of
something.” It also can mean “the act of
distinguishing by finding differences.” In the
context of African American history, it describes
prejudiced actions and outlooks that isolated
African Americans and justified unfair treatment.
 In the late 1800s, Southern states imposed restrictions that stymied African
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Americans’ ability to vote. Some states required a poll tax, usually in an amount too
much for most poor African Americans. Mississippi required a literacy test.
The Civil Rights Act of 1875, which prohibited segregation, was overturned by the
Supreme Court in 1883. As a result of the ruling, Southern states legally established
racial segregation in public places.
Southern states passed Jim Crow laws to enforce discrimination.
Often, violent oppression was used in the form of beating, intimidation, and
lynching.
In 1896, the Supreme Court upheld the notion of “separate but equal” in the
case Plessy v. Ferguson, legalizing segregation in the South for more than 50 years.
Discussion
 How did the ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson affect
Southern African Americans?
 The ruling declared segregation legal, and
Southern African Americans faced decades of
formal, legal discrimination as a result.
 What was meant by the term “separate but
equal”?
 It meant that services, facilities, and public
accommodations were allowed to be separated by
race, on the condition that the quality of each
group’s public facilities was to remain equal.
Background
 Jim Crow was a stereotypical African American
character in a nineteenth-century song and dance
act. It became a derogatory way of referring to an
African American; the name described the laws
that were passed to help whites reestablish the
white supremacy that had been threatened by the
Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.
Consider the perspectives of Southern African Americans as you discuss
the quote.