The purpose of this essay is to describe the condition of southern African-Americans between 1877 and 1915. Overall, it was appalling. There seems to be little point to rehearsing the negative. Rather, the concern here will be to explore what the African-American community was able to learn collectively from its experience and bring with it into the twentieth century.
In 1877 the Federal government gave up the attempt to impose Reconstruction on the South, withdrew Federal forces from the South, and allowed the Southern whites to take over control of their states again. Because of the systematic breeding of slaves, whites were greatly outnumbered by African-Americans in the South, and so lived in fear of a massacre. That the African-American-dominated governments during the Reconstruction era had been quite restrained in dealing with the whites, few of whom had been slave-owners in any significant way, did not seem to make any difference. The whites wanted their power back, and were ruthless in getting it. In addition, many southern whites were still angry over the loss of the civil war and of their previous position as the political leaders of America. There was no way to take revenge against the Yankees, but it was possible to attack those for whom the Yankees had fought: the African-Americans.
They began a reign of terror against African-Americans. Women were routinely gang-raped, and any African-American man who attempted to defend even their own wives were executed on the spot. And, of course, any African-American man who exhibited any inclination toward leadership was lynched. Except in very rare instances, there was no police protection for African-Americans, or any way for African-Americans to defend their communities.
This situation inspired the first large migration of southern rural African-Americans to the north. This "Great Exodus," as it was called at the time, was of adults who were all ex-slaves, fl...