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A Brief History of Civil Rights in the United States: Reconstruction and Jim Crow Eras

This guide focuses on the civil rights that various groups have fought for within the United States.

Reconstruction & Jim Crow Eras 

After the Civil War there was a period of time, from about 1865 to 1877, where new federal laws were enacted that both created and protected civil rights for formerly enslaved and free blacks. This era was known as “Reconstruction.” Reconstruction was spearheaded by Republicans. Democrats and Republicans of the late 1800s were very different parties from their current iterations. Republicans in the time of the Civil War and Reconstruction were the party of Lincoln, and often championed legislation and policy that attempted to grant all black people, but particularly black men, a more equitable place in society. During the Reconstruction era, the federal government passed the 1866 Civil Rights Bill, which was the first federal law that defined and protected citizenship for all Americans regardless of race. The 14th and 15th amendments, which enshrined civil rights and voting rights in the constitution, were also passed during this era.

However, the Reconstruction era failed to achieve its goal of creating and protecting civil rights for blacks. As the economy declined and political tensions in the south rose, Southern Democrats took back power in southern states and the federal government. They used their power to suppress and reverse civil rights gains for free and formerly enslaved blacks. These white Southern Democrats passed restrictive voter legislation and electoral laws, like poll taxes, which dramatically disenfranchised large swaths of black voters. In addition to racist and discriminatory legislation, intimidation tactics and political violence were used to stop blacks from voting. Moreover, white supremist groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, were founded in the south at the end of Reconstruction. These groups used acts of terrorism, such as lynching, to discourage and prevent blacks from exercising any of their civil rights, and diminished their ability to freely move, act, and participate in society. Many of these violent and discriminatory practices continued into the 19th and 20th centuries.

The discriminatory laws and policy that came about at the end of Reconstruction became known as Jim Crow Laws. Jim Crow laws created and enforced racial segregated public facilities, from schools and bathrooms to movie theaters and laundromats, across the southern United States. In 1896 the Supreme Court Case Plessy v. Ferguson upheld southern states' segregation laws by creating the “separate but equal” doctrine. The "separate but equal" doctrine would, theoretically, allow for segregated facilities but ensure those facilities were equal. However, in practice, facilities and services for blacks were never equal, and were consistently inferior and chronically underfunded, if they even existed at all. Jim Crow and "separate but equal" institutionalized and normalized systematic racial discrimination against blacks in all areas of life. While southern states had Jim Crow laws, de facto segregation was practiced in the northern United States via polices, practices, and attitudes that encouraged discrimination. From discriminatory housing policies, which kept blacks out of certain neighborhoods and barred many from homeownership to job discrimination and discriminatory labor union practices, which caused black workers to be paid far less than white workers; racial segregation and discrimination was practiced across the United States, not just the south.

Largely because of Jim Crow laws and the diminishing economic opportunities in the south, at the end of the 1800s black began to move out of southern states. By the 1970s, millions of blacks had moved from the south to places like Detroit, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Washington DC. This movement became known as the Great Migration. Despite the immense challenges and violence blacks faced during the Jim Crow era, this time period was not without its triumphs. The National Association for the Advancement for Colored People, better known as the NAACP, was founded in 1909, and the Great Migration set the stage for the Harlem Renaissance – a deeply influential cultural, social, and artistic movement. The Harlem Renaissance gave us trail blazing musicians like Duke Ellington and Jelly Roll Morton, renowned authors such as Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Huges, actresses and singers, such as the original it-girl Josephine Baker, and important scholars and great philosophical thinkers such as W.E.B Du Bois. Not only was the Harlem Renaissance an important episode in black cultural history, but the Harlem Renaissance influenced, enriched, and bettered American culture as whole.

 

 

Notable Supreme Court Cases:

  • The Slaughter-House Cases, 83 U.S. 36 (1873) - this series of three cases, which were consolidated into one issue, offered the first opinion from the Supreme Court on the 14th Amendment. The court chose to interpret the rights protected by the 14th Amendment as very narrow and this precedent would be followed for many years to come.
  • Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3 (1883) - in this set of five cases that were consolidated into one issue, a majority of the court held the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional against the lone famous dissent of Justice Harlan. The majority argued that Congress lacked authority to regulate private affairs under the 14th Amendment and that the 13th Amendment "merely abolishe[d] slavery". Segregation in public accommodations would not be declared illegal after these cases until the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
  • Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896) - this is the case which gave us the phrase "separate but equal" and upheld state racial segregation laws for public facilities. Justice Harlan again offered a lone dissent. These laws would remain in play until 1954.

 

Learn More!

Selected Library Resources

  • Ronald M. Labbé and Jonathan Lurie, The Slaughterhouse Cases: Regulation, Reconstruction, and the Fourteenth Amendment, KF228.S545 L33 2003
  • Williamjames Hull Hoffer, 'Plessy v. Ferguson': Race and Inequality in Jim Crow America, KF223. P56 H64 2012
  • Laurie Collier Hillstrom, Plessy v. Ferguson (2013, available as an ebook) 
  • Christopher Waldep, African Americans Confront Lynching: Strategies of Resistance from the Civil War to the Civil Rights EraHV6457 .W347 2009
  • Mary-Elizabeth B. Murphy, Jim Crow Capital: Women and Black Freedom Struggles in Washington, D.C., 1920-1945, E185.86 .M9525 2018
  • Proquest Historical Newspapers - this collection provides access to African American newspapers including Atlanta Daily World (1931-2003), The Baltimore Afro-American (1893-1988), Chicago Defender (1909-1975), Cleveland Call and Post (1934-1991), Los Angeles Sentinel (1934-2005), New York Amsterdam News (1922-1993), Norfolk Journal and Guide (1916-2003), Philadelphia Tribune (1912-2001), Pittsburg Courier (1911-2002). 
  • Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law - HeinOnline

Additional Resources

  •  NRP's Fresh Air podcast hosted special guest Eric Foner, professor of history at Columbia University, for a discussion of Reconstruction's complicated legacy. Listen here: "Unresolved Legacy of Reconstruction"
  • Learning for Justice, a community education program from the Southern Poverty Law Center, has a podcast examining the Jim Crow era and its lasting impacts. Listen here: Jim Crow: Yesterday and Today.
  • "Jim Crow: Yesterday and Today" is the first of sixteen episodes that discuss the century between the Civil War and the modern Civil Rights Movement, with a focus on how "systemic racism and slavery persisted and evolved after emancipation." To listen to the rest of this Learning for Justice season, click here.