focus question why do people tend to separate into groups? what critieria are used to form these...
TRANSCRIPT
Focus Question• Why do people tend to separate into groups? What
critieria are used to form these groups?
Redemption Era• Without federal troops, Reconstruction governments
collapsed• Old Planter elites reclaimed political power• Chased out Republican and Black officials• Began to rewrite electoral rules
• Did not amend state constitutions for 20 years
Rolling Back on Voting• Limit Black representation
• Poll Tax• Literacy Test
• However, poor whites caught by this• Grandfather Clause• Promoting White Supremacy
Growth of the Black Middle Class• In Southern towns, a Black professional class develops
• Shop owners• Lawyers• Doctors• Teachers
Concerns Arise• Black Middle Class is a threat
• Educated• Respectful positions• Hold a certain amount of wealth• Successful
• In many ways, at a higher social class than poor whites.
Railroad• Southern railroads divided into two sections
• First class• Nice accommodations• Gentile conduct
• Second class• Rude and rough accommodations• Place for men to smoke and drink
Social Conventions• Second Class was not acceptable for women
• No one, white or black, wanted their women in the second class car.
• Few businessmen wanted to be in the second class car.• Unchaperoned white women with successful Black men• Draws a concern for Southern social custom
Southern White Fear• Fear develops of relations between white women and
black men• Laws passed to separate the races in “home” settings
• Railcars• Schools• Theaters
• Quickly expanded
Challenged• Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)• Homer Plessy was 1/8th Black
• Bought a first class ticket• Forced to the Second class car
• Filed Suit
Plessy v. Ferguson• Supreme Court decided case
• Ruled that “separate but equal” facilities were constitutional
• 8 to 1 decision• “Jim Crow” laws began to spring up all over, going much
further than “home-like” settings