Segregation and Discrimination

Federal troops were removed from the South in 1876. Ways in which blacks’ right to vote was restricted in the South: poll taxes literacy tests grandfather clauses violence Segregation via Jim Crow laws became the norm, and African Americans lost voting rights.

The many strategies used to keep African American voters away from the polls were very effective.

In addition to losing their voting rights, African Americans also faced widespread segregation in the South and in the North. Still, African Americans refused to accept their status as second-class citizens. Several important leaders emerged and called for equality. The constitutionality of Jim Crow laws was upheld by the Supreme Court in the 1896 case Plessy v. Ferguson.

Booker T. Washington was the most famous black leader of the late 19th century. Washington believed that black citizens should focus their energies on building up their own economic resources through hard work, instead of using those energies to overturn Jim Crow. 5

Some disagreed with Booker T. Washington. Du Bois felt the burden of achieving equality should not rest on the shoulders of African Americans alone. W.E.B. Du Bois argued that blacks should demand full and equal rights immediately. Another black leader was Ida B. Wells, who devoted her life to the crusade against lynching. 6

Mexican Americans struggled against discrimination. In the Southwest, four out of five Mexican Americans lost their land after the Mexican-American War, despite a treaty which guaranteed their property rights. Las Gorras Blancas, a Mexican American group, fought for their rights by inflicting property damage on landowners and publishing grievances in their own newspaper.

Chinese immigrants also faced racial prejudice in the West at this time. The Chinese Exclusion Act prohibited Chinese laborers from entering the country. Faced with severe job discrimination, some Chinese Americans managed to start their own businesses.

Prior to the Civil War, women played a large role in reform movements, including the call to abolish slavery. Leaders wanted to further women’s rights and were disappointed when women were not included in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments. Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton formed the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1869.

Susan B. Anthony voted in an election in 1872 and was arrested. Awaiting trial, she toured the nation, delivering a powerful speech on the issue. Activists did not secure women’s suffrage during the 19th century. 10