The Gilded Age

1
The Gilded Age

• Creating American Apartheid

2
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
• South Carolina until 1900
• Georgia until 1908
• South sent black legislators to Washington every
  election but one through 1900
• Disfranchisement remained inconsistent largely
  a local issue
• Occurred mainly through fraud and intimidation
• Occurred often enough to ensure white domination

3
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.

4
Gerrymandering
5
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

6
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

7
Lynching across Time
8
Lynching by State
9
Lynching in Texas
Paris - 1893
lt Waco - 1916
10
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
• Whites never fully accepted changes
• Whites offered to accept changes as a condition
  to regain former positions in the Union

11
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.

12
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

13
Ida B. Wells(1862-1931)

• Campaigned for womens rights
• Campaigned for black equality
• Outspoken opponent of lynching (A Red Record
  1895)
• Helped found NAACP (1909)

14
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

15
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

16
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

17
Jim Crow Laws
18
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

19
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

20
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)

21
Exodusters

• Many Blacks migrated West to avoid repression