The Jim Crow South

APUSH Notes — Reconstruction to Jim Crow (1865–1900)

Reconstruction (1865–1877)

  • Goal: Reintegrate Southern states and define status of formerly enslaved people.

  • Republicans controlled federal policy.

  • African Americans voted and held office.

  • White Southern resistance intensified.

Constitutional Amendments

13th Amendment (1865)

  • Abolished slavery.

14th Amendment (1868)

  • Citizenship to all born in U.S.

  • Due process and equal protection.

15th Amendment (1870)

  • Prohibited denial of vote based on race.

Rise of White Resistance

Ku Klux Klan (founded 1866)

  • White supremacist terror group.

  • Used violence to suppress Black voting and Republican leadership.

  • Enforcement Acts (1870–71) attempted to curb violence.

Civil Rights Act of 1875

  • Banned racial discrimination in public accommodations.

  • 1883 Supreme Court decision struck it down.

  • Court ruled 14th Amendment applies only to state actions, not private individuals.

  • Opened door for legalized segregation.

Election of 1876 & Compromise of 1877

  • Rutherford B. Hayes vs. Samuel J. Tilden.

  • Disputed electoral votes resolved by commission.

  • Compromise: Hayes became president; federal troops withdrawn from South.

  • Marked end of Reconstruction.

  • “Home rule” returned to Southern Democrats.

Rise of Jim Crow (1880s–early 1900s)

  • Southern Democrats (Bourbons) regained power.

  • Passed segregation laws in:

    • Schools

    • Transportation

    • Public facilities

    • Housing

  • Created system of de jure segregation.

Disenfranchisement Tactics

  • Poll taxes

  • Literacy tests

  • Grandfather clauses

  • Intimidation and violence

Result: Massive decline in Black voter registration by 1900.

Key Supreme Court Cases

Civil Rights Cases (1883)

  • Overturned Civil Rights Act of 1875.

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

  • Upheld “separate but equal.”

  • Legalized state segregation laws.

Williams v. Mississippi (1898)

  • Upheld literacy tests and poll taxes.

  • Allowed racial disenfranchisement.

Racial Violence

  • Lynching widespread in South.

  • Used to enforce racial hierarchy.

  • Ida B. Wells exposed lynching through journalism.

Big Picture (APUSH Themes)

  • Federal retreat from protecting Black rights.

  • Supreme Court weakened Reconstruction amendments.

  • Legal segregation and disenfranchisement institutionalized.

  • Jim Crow entrenched racial inequality until mid-20th century Civil Rights Movement.