Civil rights movement

===Disenfranchisement after Reconstruction===
{{Main|Disenfranchisement after the Reconstruction Era}}
{{Further|Jim Crow laws|Civil rights movement (1865–1896)|Civil rights movement (1896–1954)
}}
After the [[1876 United States presidential election|disputed election]] of 1876, which resulted in the end of Reconstruction and the withdrawal of federal troops, whites in the South regained political control of the region's state legislatures. They continued to intimidate and violently attack blacks before and during elections to suppress their voting, but the last African Americans were elected to Congress from the South before disenfranchisement of blacks by states throughout the region, as described below.

[[File:Lynching-of-will-james.jpg|thumb|left|The mob-style [[Lynching in the United States|lynching]] of [[William "Froggie" James|Will James]], [[Cairo, Illinois]], 1909]]

From 1890 to 1908, southern states passed new constitutions and laws to [[Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era|disenfranchise]] African Americans and many [[Poor White]]s by creating barriers to voter registration; voting rolls were dramatically reduced as blacks and poor whites were forced out of electoral politics. After the landmark [[United States Supreme Court|Supreme Court]] case of ''[[Smith v. Allwright]]'' (1944), which prohibited [[white primaries]], progress was made in increasing black political participation in the Rim South and [[Acadiana]] – although almost entirely in urban areas<ref>Klarman, Michael J.; 'The White Primary Rulings: A Case Study in the Consequences of Supreme Court Decisionmaking'; ''Florida State University Law Review'', vol. 29, issue 55, pp. 55–107</ref> and a few rural localities where most blacks worked outside plantations.<ref>Walton, Hanes (junior); Puckett, Sherman and Deskins Donald R. (junior); ''The African American Electorate: A Statistical History'', p. 539 {{ISBN|0872895084}}</ref> The ''status quo ante'' of excluding African Americans from the political system lasted in the remainder of the South, especially [[North Louisiana]], Mississippi and Alabama, until national civil rights legislation was passed in the mid-1960s to provide federal enforcement of constitutional voting rights. For more than sixty years, blacks in the South were essentially excluded from politics, unable to elect anyone to represent their interests in Congress or local government.<ref name="States afraid to take action" /> Since they could not vote, they could not serve on local juries.

During this period, the white-dominated [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic Party]] maintained political control of the South. With whites controlling all the seats representing the total population of the South, they had a powerful [[voting bloc]] in Congress. The [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican Party]]{{mdash}}the "party of Lincoln" and the party to which most blacks had belonged{{mdash}}shrank to insignificance except in remote [[Southern Unionist|Unionist]] areas of [[Appalachia]] and the [[Ozarks]] as black voter registration was suppressed. The Republican [[lily-white movement]] also gained strength by excluding blacks. Until 1965, the "[[Solid South]]" was a one-party system under the white Democrats. Excepting the previously noted historic Unionist strongholds the Democratic Party nomination was tantamount to election for state and local office.<ref>{{cite book |author1=Otis H Stephens, Jr |author2=John M Scheb, II |title=American Constitutional Law: Civil Rights and Liberties |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tFcwj2yrLcwC&pg=PA528 |year=2007 |publisher=Cengage Learning |page=528 |isbn=978-0-495-09705-1}}</ref> In 1901, President [[Theodore Roosevelt]] invited [[Booker T. Washington]], president of the [[Tuskegee Institute]], to dine at the [[White House]], making him the first African American to attend an official dinner there. "The invitation was roundly criticized by southern politicians and newspapers."<ref name="finkelman"/> Washington persuaded the president to appoint more blacks to federal posts in the South and to try to boost African-American leadership in state Republican organizations. However, these actions were resisted by both white Democrats and white Republicans as an unwanted federal intrusion into state politics.<ref name="finkelman">{{cite book |editor=Paul Finkelman |title=Encyclopedia of African American History |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6gbQHxb_P0QC&pg=RA3-PA199 |year=2009 |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=199–200 of vol 4 |isbn=978-0-19-516779-5}}</ref>

[[File:Omaha courthouse lynching.jpg|thumb|[[Lynching]] victim Will Brown, who was mutilated and burned during the [[Omaha race riot of 1919|Omaha, Nebraska race riot of 1919]]. Postcards and photographs of lynchings were popular souvenirs in the U.S.<ref>Moyers, Bill. [https://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/11232007/profile2.html "Legacy of Lynching"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170829121124/https://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/11232007/profile2.html |date=August 29, 2017 }}. PBS. Retrieved July 28, 2016</ref>]]

During the same time as African Americans were being disenfranchised, white southerners imposed [[Racial segregation in the United States|racial segregation]] by law. Violence against blacks increased, with numerous [[lynchings]] through the turn of the century. The system of ''[[de jure]]'' state-sanctioned racial discrimination and oppression that emerged from the post-Reconstruction South became known as the "[[Jim Crow]]" system. The United States Supreme Court made up almost entirely of Northerners, upheld the constitutionality of those state laws that required racial segregation in public facilities in its 1896 decision ''[[Plessy v. Ferguson]]'', legitimizing them through the "[[separate but equal]]" doctrine.<ref>[[Rayford Logan]],''The Betrayal of the Negro from Rutherford B. Hayes to Woodrow Wilson'', pp. 97–98. New York: Da Capo Press, 1997.</ref> Segregation, which began with slavery, continued with Jim Crow laws, with signs used to show blacks where they could legally walk, talk, drink, rest, or eat.<ref name="Leon Litwack 2004">Leon Litwack, ''Jim Crow Blues'', Magazine of History (OAH Publications, 2004)</ref> For those places that were racially mixed, non-whites had to wait until all white customers were served first.<ref name="Leon Litwack 2004" /> Elected in 1912, President [[Woodrow Wilson]] gave in to demands by Southern members of his cabinet and ordered segregation of workplaces throughout the federal government.<ref>Michael Kazin, Rebecca Edwards, Adam Rothman (2009). ''The Princeton Encyclopedia of American Political History''. p. 245. Princeton University Press</ref>

The early 20th century is a period often referred to as the "[[nadir of American race relations]]", when the number of lynchings was highest. While tensions and [[civil rights]] violations were most intense in the South, social discrimination affected African Americans in other regions as well.<ref>C. Vann Woodward, ''The Strange Career of Jim Crow'', 3rd rev. ed. (Oxford University Press, 1974), pp. 67–109.</ref> At the national level, the Southern bloc controlled important committees in Congress, defeated passage of federal laws against lynching, and exercised considerable power beyond the number of whites in the South.

Characteristics of the post-Reconstruction period:
* [[Racial segregation]]. By law, public facilities and government services such as education were divided into separate "white" and "colored" domains.<ref>[http://www.crmvet.org/info/seglaws.htm Birmingham Segregation Laws] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110204031120/http://www.crmvet.org/info/seglaws.htm |date=February 4, 2011 }}&nbsp;– Civil Rights Movement Archive</ref> Characteristically, those for colored were underfunded and of inferior quality.
* [[Disenfranchisement after the Reconstruction Era|Disenfranchisement]]. When white Democrats regained power, they passed laws that made voter registration more restrictive, essentially forcing black voters off the voting rolls. The number of African-American voters dropped dramatically, and they were no longer able to elect representatives. From 1890 to 1908, Southern states of the former Confederacy created constitutions with provisions that disfranchised tens of thousands of African Americans, and U.S. states such as Alabama disenfranchised poor whites as well.
* [[Exploitation of labour|Exploitation]]. Increased economic oppression of blacks through the [[convict lease]] system, [[Hispanic and Latino Americans|Latinos]], and [[Asian Pacific American|Asians]],{{Clarify|date=May 2023|reason=Should "through the convict lease system" follow "Latinos, and Asians"?}} denial of economic opportunities, and widespread employment discrimination.
* Violence. Individual, police, paramilitary, organizational, and [[Mass racial violence in the United States|mob racial violence against blacks]] (and Latinos in the [[Southwestern United States|Southwest]], and Asians in the [[West Coast of the United States|West Coast]]).

[[File:KKK night rally in Chicago c1920 cph.3b12355.jpg|thumb|[[Ku Klux Klan|KKK]] night rally near [[Chicago]], in the 1920s]]

African Americans and other ethnic minorities rejected this regime. They resisted it in numerous ways and sought better opportunities through lawsuits, new organizations, political redress, and labor organizing (see the [[Civil rights movement (1896–1954)]]). The [[National Association for the Advancement of Colored People]] (NAACP) was founded in 1909. It fought to end race discrimination through [[litigation]], education, and [[lobbying]] efforts. Its crowning achievement was its legal victory in the Supreme Court decision ''[[Brown v. Board of Education]]'' (1954), when the [[Warren Court]] ruled that segregation of public schools in the US was unconstitutional and, by implication, overturned the "[[separate but equal]]" doctrine established in ''[[Plessy v. Ferguson]]'' of 1896.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /> Following the unanimous Supreme Court ruling, many states began to gradually integrate their schools, but some areas of the South resisted by closing public schools altogether.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" />

The integration of Southern public libraries followed demonstrations and protests that used techniques seen in other elements of the larger civil rights movement.<ref name="Fultz, M. 2006">Fultz, M. (2006). "Black Public Libraries in the South in the Era of De Jure Segregation", ''Libraries & The Cultural Record'', 41(3), 338–346.</ref> This included sit-ins, beatings, and white resistance.<ref name="Fultz, M. 2006" /> For example, in 1963 in the city of [[Anniston, Alabama]], two black ministers were brutally beaten for attempting to integrate the public library.<ref name="Fultz, M. 2006" /> Though there was resistance and violence, the integration of libraries was generally quicker than the integration of other public institutions.<ref name="Fultz, M. 2006" />