Civil Rights - FP2 - Political and Social Exclusion Flashcards
Spread of Jim Crow - Railway
Laws possessed symbolic value - Jim Crow concerned with etiquette and courtesies
1865 Florida state law punished blacks or whites who entered a railroad car reserved for another race
1887 Legal segregation in railway carriages in Florida - fines of $500
1888 Mississippi, 1889 Texas
Segregation in other social areas: Hospitals
Rural blacks life expectancy of only 33 years
1/3 children died before age 10
Black hospitals lacked staff, supplies, and equipment - impoverished black farmers were often forced to turn for help in paying medical fees to white landlords - whose goodwill could not be guaranteed
Segregation in other social areas: Education
School enrollment and literacy increased by over 40% pre 1890
However - in 1890, only 0.39% of Southern black children attended high shool and in 1910 just 2.8%
1910 South Carolina - avg $5.95 per black pupil compared with $40.68 per white pupil
Reasons for disenfranchisement: Populism and Progressives
Populists form coalitions between black white farmers - Virginia 1881-3 disenfranchisement from Dems to defeat populist control - as in N Carolina Democrats divide Readjusters(1894-1896) with White Supremacy
Stereotypes keep excuse for ‘racial unity’ - Harvard evolution displayed cabinet showing monkey then black man then white man
Reasons for disenfranchisement: Federal Govt Inaction
Congress never reduced Southern states’ congressional represnetation in proportion to its illegal disenfranchisment as authorized in 14th
1890 Herny Cabot Lodge ‘Force Bill’ - federal supervision of elections - blocked by Southerners
Supreme Court
Methods of Disenfranchisment: Violence, redrawing districts, fraud and poll tax
Violence, White Supremacist Groups such as Rifle Clubs, Red Shirts, Louisianna White League assassinated several Republicans 1874
1880 South Carolina shoe string district
Fraud - Mississippi official mantained mules ate ballot papers
Georgia poll tax 871, Arkansas 71% AA pre 1890, 9% post poll tax
Methods of Disenfranchisment: Literacy qualifications, restrictive registration, white primaries, grandfather clauses
1882 South Carolina ‘Eight Box Law’
40-60% blacks illterate, compared to 8-18% of whites
1890 Mississippi first confed to cal convention for sole purpose of excluding black voters
Restrictive registration practices - inconvenient times, provision of info unavailable to many blacks (street addresses)
1896 1915 - every southern state adopted white primaries
Louisiana Grandfather Clause 1898, Enfranchised poor whites
Effects of Disenfranchisment
1900 only 3% of black Southern males could vote
By 1901 George White of North Carolina, teh last Black politician had left congress - there would not be another from the South until 1972
1896 130,334 blacks voting, 1904 1400, 1910 730
Even federal appointmnets of black post masters was contreversial - 1898 lynching in S Carolina
No blacks in legislature of Indianna after 1897, Massachusetts after 1902 and Ohio after 1906
