The Segregated South: Plessy v. Ferguson, African Americans' loss of Constitutional and Civil Rights, African American’s Responses to the “New” South Topic 6.4 (Causation) (jan 1, 1919 – 8h 20min, jun 6, 2026 y)

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Causes:
- Reconstruction ended in 1877. The North left the South to solve its social problems.
- There were White Supremacists who liked segregating public facilities between African Americans and White people.
- Redeemers, Democratic politicians who got power in the South, exerted power by playing on the racial fears of the Whites.
- The Supreme Court showed discrimination by declining laws that were supposed to help African Americans.
- The Civil Rights Cases of 1883 ruled that Congress cannot ban racial discrimination practiced by citizens or businesses.
- The Plessy v. Ferguson case ruled the Louisana Law "separate but equal accommodations". The Supreme Court ruled that it was not violating the 14th amendment.
- The Jim Crow Laws were segregation laws that were supported in the South.
- There was a loss of civil rights as there were restrictions to voting which stopped African Americans from voting. There were literacy tests, poll taxes, and the grandfather clauses (if your grandfather didn't vote, neither can you)
- African Americans couldn't serve on juries, they received worse punishments than Whites when sentenced to jail, they got lynched, and they had economic discrimination (kept African Americans out of factories and skilled trades).

Effects:
-People were advocating against segregation like Ida B. Wells, editor of Memphis Free Speech, campaigning against lynching and the Jim Crow Laws.
- Bishop Henry Turner made the International Migration Society in 1894 to help move African Americans to Africa.
- Booker T. Washington, who had support from Whites (Andrew Carnegie and Roosevelt), opened an industrial and agricultural school for African Americans so they could learn skilled trades. He believed if they had more money, then it would be easier to gain political power afterward.
- He believed in the Atlanta Compromise, which was a belief that Black and White Southerners shared a responsibility for making their region better.
- Washington thought it didn't matter if you were separated, just as long as you worked hard 0n your job then that was enough
- In 1900, Washington organized the National Negro Business League which had 320 chapters across the nation to support businesses run by African Americans.
- Some people supported Washington and others didn't agree with him.
- White Supremacy and segregation continued to dominate in the South until the civil rights movement in the 1950s.

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