Ch 14 White Supremacy Triumphant: African
Americans in the South in the Late Nineteenth Century
The Redemption Period
Post-Reconstruction/Redemption Characteristics
□ Intellectual and cultural inferiority
□ Sympathy to occupying West and
Industrial Revolution
□ AA abandoned by President, Congress
and Supreme Court
□ Conservative Democrats regain
political power
Politics
□ AA voters disenfranchised
■ Violence, intimidation, bribes
■ Evasion of 15th Amendment
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Eight Box Law
Mississippi
South Carolina
Louisiana
Politics
□ AA politicians decrease
□ Loyal to Republicans or switch to
Democrats
Farmers and Politics
□ Discontent with emphasis on
Industrialization & RRs
□ Issues
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Loss of land
Debt
RR rates for shipping
□ Patrons of Husbandry or Grange (1870s)
□ Colored Farmers’ Alliance (1888/1889)
The Populist Party (1892)
□ Farmers & Industrial Workers
□ Challenged Republicans and
Democrats
□ AA and white political unity
■ Thomas Watson
Segregation
□ Jim Crow
■ Minstrel
□ “black face”
□ Caricatures
Caricature Types
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Sambo
Zip Coon
Black-faced Comedian
or Clown
The Sweet Man/Buck or
Mandingo/The Bad
Nigger
Shiftless Negro Servant
Dialect Speaking
Preacher/Elder
Happy-go Lucky Male
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Mammy
Tragic Mulatto
Over-sexed female or
Vampire
The Witch Doctor or
Conjurer
The Superstitious Male
or Female
Animalistic/Cannibal
Caricatures
What does THIS have to do with President Obama’s
stance on gay marriage or “marriage equality”?
Segregation
□ Legal separation
■ 1st laws involved passenger trains
□ (1881) TN (1887) FLA
□ RRs object initially
■ Plessy v Ferguson (1892)
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Purpose
“Separate but Equal OK”
Dred Scott (1857) (219-220)
Weakened 14th Amendment
■ Segregation Grows
Racial Etiquette
□ AA supposed to act in obedience and
subservience
□ Examples
AA response to Jim Crow
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Build own institutions/businesses
Protest
Migrate West/Canada/Africa
Passing
Violence
□ Political and mob violence during
Reconstruction continues during Redemption
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Drive AA and white Republicans out of office
□ Lynching
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Common by 1890s
What?
Why? Blame the Black Man
How?
□ Ida B Wells Barnett
Migration
□ Calls for migration to other parts of
U.S./World begin
□ 1870s-1900s
■ Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Africa
(Liberia)
□ Back to Africa Movement aka
Colonization Movement
Liberia
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1877 Colonization Movement
■
Martin Delany (222)
Liberian Exodus Joint Stock Steamship Co.
1878 April-June
What happens?
The Exodusters
□ Benjamin “Pap”
Singleton
□ 1862 Homestead Act
□ White Response
□ AA Leader Response
All Black Towns
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Nicodemus, Kansas
Indian Territory-Boley, Liberty, Langston
Nebraska, Dakotas, Colorado, Rocky Mountains
Great Plains-Sodbusters
1887 Eatonville, Florida-1st incorporated AA community
Migration within the South
□ Farms to villages, towns, large Southern
cities
□ Economic Opportunities
□ Menial Labor
□ More entertainment, religion, education
□ AA women vs men
□ Effect on AA family
Black Farm Families
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Sharecroppers
Renters
Crop Liens
Peonage
Black Landowners
White resentment
Black Farmers Today
□ 1910 15 mill acres
□ 1980s >2 mill acres
□ What happened
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USDA racism
Black Farmers Association
led by John Boyd
Class action suit
1999 settlement
Handling of suit unsatisfactory
□ Urban Farmers
□ Ron Finley “Guerilla
Gardener”
African Americans and the Southern
Courts
□ Injustice for AA
□ Ordinances/laws enacted to deal with
“black crime problem”
□ Segregated Justice
□ Convict Lease System