u.s. history since reconstruction ~ week five, lecture two

Atlanta Journal Constitution editor Henry W. Grady, who coined the term “New South.”

Reconstruction had ended Southerners hoped to:1. Modernize the economy2. Diversify the economy3. Maintain white supremacy

Investment poured into the South after 1878.

1. Northern & foreign capitalists dominated the economy.

a. Invested in the railroad.

b. Invested in extractive industries.

2. Racism kept blacks from becoming industrial workers.

3. Xenophobia kept immigrants out of the South

4. Some southern investment in industry, esp. tobacco

5. Reliance upon cotton cultivation & crop-lien system

South remained extractive economy1. Lumber2. Coal3. Turpentine4. Phosphate5. Seafood6. Cotton

Black farmers generally farmed as sharecroppers.

White tenants were allowed to rent.

With falling wholesale cotton crop prices, both fell into debt.

“Furnishing merchants” charged interest & higher rates for credit customers. In return:• received a “lien” on the crop• insisted that debtors grow cotton

Factors1. 1894 crop double of that in 1873, but the prices were 1/3. 2. Competition from cotton grown in Egypt, India & Brazil.3. Renters & croppers got caught in a system of falling crop prices as worldwide supply increased. •To make ends meet, they grew less of their own foodstuffs•Bought food & supplies at inflated prices on credit•Resulting cycle of “debt peonage.” Croppers & tenants couldn’t afford to move & couldn’t climb out of debt

Swept across the South between 1890 & 1905

Consisted of1. Social Segregation2. Political Disenfranchisement

Upheld by Supreme Court1. Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) “separate but equal” not a violation of 14th Amendment2. Williams v. Mississippi (1898) poll taxes & literacy tests do not violate 14th Amendment

"In all things that are purely social, we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the

hand in all things essential to mutual progress.”

~ Booker T. WashingtonAtlanta Exposition Speech (1895)

Washington’s Program• African-American Self-Help• Black Self-Segregation• Build Black Businesses• Vocational Education• Foreswear Politics

Between 1882-1930: 2805 confirmed lynchings across the South87.7% Black97.2% Male

Southern claims• Lynching was only protection against black criminal behavior

47.1% of victims accused of murder or nonsexual assault33.6% accused of violating sexual norms

Purpose of Lynching• Take care of dangerous blacks (per Southern claims) • State-Sanctioned Terror Giving Whites Leverage Over Blacks• Target Black Competitors for Social, Economic or Political Power• Affirm White Racial Unity & Superiority