how far had African Americans lost rather than gained civil rights between 1877 and 1915?

The active political role at lower (and occasionally higher) levels of government that some African Americans gained in the South during Reconstruction had disappeared. There were no African Americans in Congress by 1915 or even in state legislatures

Loss

• after Reconstruction ended in 1877 white Democrats regained control

• disenfranchisement laws poll tax literacy tests grandfather clauses excluded black voters

• Williams v Mississippi 1898 Upheld voting restrictions

equal opportunities in education had never existed for African Americans

CONTINUATION

• segregation in in schools due to gym crew laws

• Plessy V Ferguson (1886) upheld separate (and unequal schools)

• funding was disproportionate were black neighbourhoods were poor

• freedman’s bureau had limited funding = bad teachers

the rights of black men to vote had been systematically removed in the South (and on occasions less systematically in the north) by a series of state laws of doubtful constitutional validity but held up by the legal system

LOSS

• southern constituencies (e.g. Mississippi 1890) intintroduce legal methods to stop lack voting like the poll tax

• williams V mississippi 1890 legitimised them

• by 1910 almost all southern black men voting lost ability

• white jury and Supreme Court refused to intervene

by the end of the period the civil rights protest movement had begun to develop with the NAACP

GAIN

• Niagara Movement (1905) by DuBois (political) demanding for equality

• NAACP (1909) used courts to challenge discrimination and anti-lynching

• Ida B Wells anti-lynching campaigns

it was extremely difficult to change white political domination, especially in the South

LOSS

• Democratic Party “Solid South) maintained control

• Presidents Hayes up to Wilson largely ignored racial issues

  • executive departments becoming segregated areas

• US V Cruickshank took the army out

the Tuskegee machine had improved economic opportunities for African americans

GAIN

• 21 million rations, 4000 schools, 40 hospitals

• Tuskegee Institute (1881) taught industrial and agricultural skills 

• most black people remained sharecroppers in debt 

  • small middle class rise

there had never been a chance of a fair trial with the colour of your skin was not white

CONTINUATION

• jury all white, probably KKK too

• convict leasing exploited black prisoners as forced labour

• US v Cruikshank (1876) weakened federal protection by taking the army out the south

violent threats in general and lynching in particular, produced a climate of fear in many black communities which impoverished their quality of life even if they were not directly attacked themselves

LOSS

• by 1890, 2 lynchings of AA a day

• Ida B Wells exposed the force pretext of rape accusation

  • “defence of white womanhood”

• violence enforced racial hierarchy (social darwinism) and discouraged activity (i.e. Populist Party 1890s)

segregation laws had formalised and increased the separation of the races in the South the development of public transport in this. Merely produced additional opportunities for the more humiliating forms of segregation

LOSS

• Jim Crow Laws After Plessy V Ferguson (1896) ; “seperate but equal”

• segregation in transport, schools, housing and public life overall

with the sudden death of Booker T Washington in 1915 and the increasing impact of the WW1, 1,000’s were now joining the organisation and the wisdom of Black meekly accepting their oppression and being increasingly challenged

GAIN

• young leaders like Dubois, Wells and Trotter demanded direct action

• NAACP membership (rapid after 1915)

'by 1900 the south black population was more powerless than at any other time since the death of slavery’ Adam Fairclough, Better day Coming

LOSS

• white supremacy → KKK → lynching

• black people can't vote = no representation

• de jure segregation

chances of receiving a formal education did increase for AA in this period but not as much as for whites

GAIN

• Tuskegee Institute built 4000 schools 

  • ¼ of 1,000,000 former slaves educated

• black universities (Howard, Fisk, Tuskegee)

• literacy rates

  • 1870: 20%

  • 1910: 70%