The Gilded Age
Creating American Apartheid
Race Relations in Transition
1865 – 1890
White “Redeemers” tolerated a lingering black voice in
politics
• Through the 1880s, politics remained open and democratic
• 64% of eligible voters (black & white) participated in elections
• Blacks remained in elective office
o South Carolina until 1900
o Georgia until 1908
• South sent black legislators to Washington every election but
one through 1900
• Disfranchisement remained inconsistent & largely a local issue
o Occurred mainly through fraud and intimidation
o Occurred often enough to ensure white domination
Minimizing the Black Vote
Gerrymandering
There are two principal strategies behind gerrymandering:
● maximizing the effective votes of supporters
● minimizing the effective votes of opponents.
Packing, is to place as many voters of one type into a single
district to reduce their influence in other districts.
Cracking, involves spreading out voters of a particular type
among many districts in order to reduce their representation
by denying them a sufficiently large voting block in any
particular district.
Gerrymandering
Race Relations in Transition
(1865 – 1880s)
Whites showed no great haste in erecting barriers of racial
separation.
Segregation appeared before end of Reconstruction in some
areas




Schools
Churches
Hotels & rooming houses
Private social relations
Discrimination more sporadic in places of public
accommodation




Trains
Depots
Theaters
Restaurants
Lynch Law
• A form of mob violence and putative justice, usually
involving the illegal hanging of suspected criminals.
• A terrorist method of enforcing social domination.
• Characterized by a summary procedure ignoring, or even
contrary to, the strict forms of law.
• Victims of lynching have generally been members of
groups marginalized or vilified by society.
• 1882-1968 – 4,743 lynchings [3,446 blacks]
• Texas ranks third with 352
Lynching across Time
Lynching by State
Alabama
48
299
347
Nevada
6
0
6
Arizona
31
0
31
New Jersey
0
1
1
Arkansas
58
226
284
New Mexico
33
3
36
California
41
2
43
New York
1
1
2
Colorado
66
2
68
North Carolina
15
85
100
Delaware
0
1
1
North Dakota
13
3
16
Florida
24
257
282
Ohio
10
16
26
Georgia
39
491
530
Oklahoma
82
40
122
Idaho
20
0
20
Oregon
20
1
21
Illinois
15
19
34
Pennsylvania
2
6
8
Indiana
33
14
47
South Carolina
4
156
160
Iowa
17
2
19
South Dakota
27
0
27
Kansas
35
19
54
Tennessee
47
204
251
Kentucky
63
142
205
Texas
141
352
493
Louisiana
56
335
391
Utah
6
2
8
Maryland
2
27
29
Vermont
1
0
1
Michigan
7
1
8
Virginia
17
83
100
Minnesota
5
4
9
Washington
25
1
26
Mississippi
40
538
578
West Virginia
20
28
48
Missouri
53
69
122
Wisconsin
6
0
6
Montana
82
2
84
Wyoming
30
5
35
Nebraska
52
5
57
Total
1,294
3,442
4,736
Lynching in Texas
Paris - 1893
^
||
<= Waco - 1916
Colored Men of Texas
Report of the Committee on Grievances at the State
Convention of Colored Men of Texas – 1883
• Reaction to the Supreme Court decision that struck down
the Civil Rights Act of 1875 as unconstitutional.
• Drafted prior to the national convention in Kentucky.
• Whites pretended to accept blacks change in status:
o Whites never fully accepted changes
o Whites offered to accept changes as a condition to regain
former positions in the Union
Colored Men of Texas
Report of the Committee on Grievances at the State
Convention of Colored Men of Texas – 1883
Mack Henson
A.R. Norris
J.N. Johnson
J.Q.A. Potts
“… the degree to which any right is enjoyed as a citizen is
measured by the willingness of the whole body of citizens to
protect such a right; if there is a lack of regard there is,
therefore, the lack of will to protect.”
Colored Men of Texas
Report of the Committee on Grievances at the State
Convention of Colored Men of Texas – 1883
• Miscegenation
• Free Schools
• Treatment of Convicts
• Railways, inns and taverns
• Juries
Ida B. Wells
(1862-1931)
Campaigned for women’s
rights
Campaigned for black
equality
Outspoken opponent of
lynching (A Red Record –
1895)
Helped found NAACP
(1909)
The Mississippi Plan
1890
Four components:
1. Residency requirement
2. Convicted criminals disqualified
3. All taxes had to be paid before voting
4. Literacy requirement
Segregation by Law
Judicial retreat created legal climate for Jim Crow laws
The Slaughterhouse cases (1873)
Limited application of 14th Amendment
Concluded most rights of citizens remained under state control
U.S. v. Cruikshank (1876)
Gutted the Enforcement Acts
Ruled only violations of rights by states, not individuals, fell
under federal purview
Civil Rights Cases (1883)
Invalidated Civil Rights Act of 1875
Ruled that unequal treatment prohibitions of 14th amendment
only applied to states, not private businesses
Plessy v. Ferguson
1896
Most important civil rights case of the 19th century
 Louisiana law required railroads to maintain separate
cars for blacks & whites
 Concerned black residents of New Orleans launched a
test case
Railroad a willing participant
 Homer Plessy refused to move to the “colored only”
section & was arrested, tried, & found guilty
 Case wound up at the Supreme Court
 High Court upheld Louisiana law
 Established “separate but equal” doctrine
Jim Crow Laws
Birth of a Nation
Released in 1915
Presented a negative
picture of Reconstruction
Portrayed the KKK as
heroes
Encapsulated dominant
historical view of the time
Vigorously opposed by
Wells, Du Bois, & others
Helped shape national
attitudes on race
Contributed to the rise of
the second KKK in 1915
Booker T. Washington
(1856-1915)
 Political leader, educator,
author
 President of Tuskegee
Institute
 Publicly urged
accommodation w/ whites
(Atlanta Compromise –
1895)
 Privately funded legal
challenges to segregation
W.E.B. Du Bois
(1868-1963)
 Harvard graduate (1890)
 Civil rights activist Advocated confrontation
w/ whites to achieve equal
rights
 Author
The Souls of Black Folk
Black Reconstruction
 Helped found NAACP
(1909)
Exodusters
Many Blacks migrated West to avoid repression