The First New South
1870-1900
Redemption
• By end of 1877 every Southern state government
had been "redeemed."
– political power had been restored to white Democrats,
known as the "Redeemers" or the "Bourbons.“
• Some were from the plantation elite, others were “new men”
• Redeemers committed to:
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"home rule"
social conservatism
economic development.
Lower taxes
reduced spending
diminished state services
Challenges to Bourbon Rule
• By late 1870s, groups were protesting cuts in
services and the Bourbon commitment to pay off
the prewar and Reconstruction debts in full
– In Va. the "Readjusters" emerged, demanding that the
state revise its debt payment procedures so as to make
more money available for state services.
• Readjusters won control of the VA legislature in 1879
• In 1880-90s, Populists also challenged Bourbons
– Populists grew out of the concerns of small farmers
• sought to unite small farmers, black and white
• But dissident uprising proved only temporary
– By 1900, South had developed into a one-party region
The “Lost Cause”
• Redeemers also promoted the “Lost Cause”
– acknowledged defeat, but also merits of a greater cause
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CSA memorials in Southern cities
CSA cemeteries
Southern Historical Society
CSA memorial groups
– Sons of Confederate Veterans; United Daughters of the
Confederacy
– Lost Cause was a psychological tool to deal with
defeat
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South lost in a just and noble cause—NOT an immoral cause
creates Southern white unity, across class lines
aids the Democratic Party
a “religious” movement
Lost Cause Imagery
Blacks and the New South
• Blacks and whites had
always lived side by
side in the South
– emancipation and
urbanization created
new tensions
• Dealt with through
Jim Crow laws
Jim Crow society characterized by:
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Disfranchisement
Segregation
Economic subjugation
Violence
Disfranchisement
• First Stage (1870-1890)
– Violence, Intimidation & Fraud
• Physical and economic intimidation
• Rise of KKK and Democratic Rifle Clubs
• Gerrymandering, miscounts, electoral fraud
– Northern Abandonment
• End of Reconstruction in 1877
Disfranchisement
• Second Stage (1890s)
– Legal Disfranchisement
• Mississippi Constitution of 1890
– Poll taxes
– Literacy Test/Understanding Clause
– Grandfather Clause
• Upheld by U.S. Supreme Court in Williams v
Mississippi (1898)
– Policies did not violate the 15th Amendment
Segregation
• De jure segregation instituted in 1890s
• Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
– Supreme Court held Louisiana’s separate
streetcar law did not violate 14th Amendment
• “Separate but Equal” established as law
Violence
Economic Subjugation
• Tenantry
– Sharecropping
– Renting
– Debt Peonage
Economic Subjugation
• Tenantry
– Sharecropping, Renting & Debt Peonage
Alabama Sharecroppers, 1939
Causes of Jim Crow
• Ambivalence on the part of Northern defenders
of black rights
• Economic problems of poor whites
• ‘Negrophobia’--anti-black propaganda and fear
• ‘Scientific’ justification for segregation
• ‘White man’s burden’--imperialism abroad
• Northern and Southern white reconciliation
• Sanction of Supreme Court—Plessy, Williams
• Jim Crow reinforces itself—becomes “normal”
Black Middle Class
• Segregation did allow for the development
of a small black middle class
– teachers, preachers, doctors, storekeepers,
lawyers
• managed to acquire property, establish small
businesses, or enter professions
– Rise of a black middle class also helped give
rise to black colleges
• Fisk, Dillard, Xavier, Morehouse, Tuskegee
Booker T. Washington
(1856-1915)
• Born a slave in Virginia
• Educated at Hampton U.
• Founder of Tuskegee U.
Tuskegee Institute
Tuskegee, circa 1900
Classes at Tuskegee
Mattress making, early 1900s
Beekeeping
Work at Tuskegee
Tuskegee’s Blacksmith shop
The Atlanta Compromise
• Washington asked to give an address at the the
“Negro Pavilion” at the 1895 Cotton States
expedition in Atlanta
• Urged both southern blacks and whites to "cast
down your bucket where you are.“
• "In all things that are purely social," he said, "we
can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the
hand in all things essential to mutual progress."
Washingtonian Accommodation
• Blacks should not blame whites for their situation
• Blacks should start from the bottom, work their way up
– Build an economic base through farming and industry
• Accept Jim Crow—work for economic opportunity
– Civil/political rights not as important as economic opportunity
• Opposed agitating for black rights
– A diversion of energy
– Aroused white hostility
The Tuskegee Machine
• Washington’s accomodationist
approach endeared him to
influential whites
– Money, patronage, jobs
• Up from Slavery (1901)
– American tale of hard work
Dined with Roosevelt, 1901