Chapter Overview

By 1890 many of the implemented actions of Reconstruction upon the southern states had grown ineffectual due to bad oversight, neglect, or opportunism on the part of southern whites eager to restore their own status quo. Many state legislatures began to pass local-level "Jim Crow" laws that effectively served to reverse the federally mandated Civil Rights Act of 1875 and other national-level legislation. Indeed, white supremacy had found its way back into the South under the thinly veiled guise of public protection and safety. Soon enough, African Americans in the South found themselves outside of the government without a vote and removed from any chance at equal accommodations, both politically and socially.

Learning Objectives

After reading this chapter you should understand the following:

• How the South was able to strip African Americans of their right to vote after Reconstruction
• The idea behind "Jim Crow" laws and how they sanctioned de facto segregation throughout the South
• Early African American attempts to confront Jim Crow in urban areas of the South
• American colonialism of the late nineteenth century as expansion through warfare, aggression, and exploitation of all peoples of color in the Western Hemisphere
• Residual racial violence long after the war, in the form of lynchings and riots