The Rise of Segregation Chapter 16 Section 3

Life after the Civil War Sharecroppers – lived on rented land, paid rent in a share of their crops Paid for rent, seed, fertilizer, tools, etc Often as much as 1/2 or 2/3 of their crop Many needed more seed and supplies than their landlord provided so they went to furnishing merchants They bought what they needed on credit but on an interest rate often as high as 40%

Life after the Civil War Furnishing merchants put crop liens on sharecroppers to ensure repayment  debt peonage Debt peonage – sharecroppers financially trapped on the land b/c of their debt to the land owner and the furnishing merchant Could not leave or file bankruptcy Imprisonment and forced labor was punishment for failing to pay debts

Freedom for Blacks? Under sharecropping blacks were… Technically free BUT they ended up in so much debt they were tied to the owners of the land and store merchants This situation was not freedom for them

Exodus to Kansas Mass migration of thousands of blacks from the rural South to Kansas Led by Benjamin “Pap” Singleton A former slave Migrants were called “Exodusters”

Disfranchising Blacks 15th Amendment – prohibited states from denying citizens the right to vote on the basis of “race, color, or previous servitude” Loophole – did not prohibit states from requiring that citizens be literate or own property in order to vote This loophole barred nearly all blacks from voting

Disfranchising Blacks Mississippi took the first steps in using the loopholes Poll tax – requiring that all citizens registering to vote pay $2 – a sum that was beyond the means of most blacks Literacy test – all registering voters be able to read or understand the state constitution

Enabling Whites Grandfather clause – giving whites a break in the voting restrictions Allow any man to vote if he had an ancestor on the voting rolls

Legalizing Segregation Segregation – separation of the races Jim Crow laws – statutes enforcing segregation in the South Civil Rights Act of 1875 – prohibited keeping people out of a public place on the basis of race 1883 – Supreme Court overturned the Civil Rights Act of 1875

Loophole Civil Rights Act of 1875 overturned b/c… The 14th Amendment only provided that “no state” could deny citizens equal protection under the law Only state actions were subject to challenge  private organizations and businesses were free to practice segregation

Plessy vs. Ferguson Homer Plessy challenged a LA law that forced him to ride in a separate railroad car from whites Plessy was arrested for riding in a “whites-only” car and brought to trial before criminal court judge John H. Ferguson Plessy argued that segregation was unconstitutional Ferguson rejected Plessy’s argument that the law was unconstitutional It goes to the Supreme Court

Plessy vs. Ferguson 1896 – Supreme Court upholds the LA segregation laws and expressed a new legal doctrine endorsing “separate but equal” facilities for blacks Now segregation is legal and constitutional everywhere

Racial Violence Lynching – executions without proper court proceedings Over 80% occurred in the South 1890 – 1899 there was an average of 187 lynchings

The Black Response Ida B. Wells – black woman from TN launched a fearless crusade against lynching She said greed, not racism was b/h lynchings She put her writings in the Memphis Free Speech newspaper A mob destroyed the press that printed that newspaper and ran Ida out of town

A Compromise? Booker T. Washington – influential educator – proposed that blacks concentrate on achieving economic goals rather than legal or political ones His speech – the Atlanta Compromise – to a mostly white audience at the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta

Voice of the Future The Atlanta Compromise speech provoked a strong challenge from W.E.B. Du Bois – leader of the new generation of black activists born after the Civil War Du Bois – The Souls of Black Folk – white Southerners continued to strip blacks of their civil rights Blacks could regain equality only by demanding their rights – especially their voting rights!!!!