A National Struggle Summary

By the election of 1876, the federal government had withdrawn from all but three southern states, leaving blacks at the mercy of state and local governments. southern democrats accepted republican Rutherford B. hayes' election in exchange for the promise of more federal aid for rebuilding the southern infrastructure and less federal intervention in southern politics. as a result, many of the civil rights blacks enjoyed during the reconstruction era were revoked. Jim Crow effectively began after the election of Rutherford b hayes. Theodore Roosevelt in 1904 heralded one of the first presidential administrations openly opposed to civil rights and suffrage for blacks. roosevelt is remembered for inviting the black leader and entrepreneur, Booker T. Washington, to the White House for dinner, the first instance of such an invitation for a black person. southern democrats were offended, and were vocal in their disapproval. Roosevelt invited Washington not to improve the situation of blacks, but because he agreed that blacks should not strive for political and social equality. president roosevelt believed that blacks were intellectually inferior, and began to decrease the number of federal appointments to blacks and promised southerners that he would appoint local federal officials that would not disrupt the accord between north and south. Virginia democrat, Woodrow wilson, who won both the 1912 and 1916 presidential elections encouraged discrimination and segregation. Of the three branches of the federal government, the legislative was most effective in enacting and maintaining discriminatory laws that kept Jim Crow alive well into the 1960s. The government decided to not enforce the 14th and 15th amendments for blacks. the congress had passed the civil rights act in 1875, making illegal to discriminate on the basis of race, but there was a national backlash against civil rights that led to the supreme court's nullification of the civil rights act in 1883. in 1901, the last black representative lost his seat in congress. it would be 30 years before a black person could gain a seat in the House or Senate. republicans continually gave in to the demands of the southern democrats, and president Harding did nothing to interfere, nor did his successors, until the late 1930s. During reconstruction the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments gave black americans freedom, citizenship, and the right to vote. In court, as long as it could be argued that the state was not culpable, segregation and discrimination went unpunished by the court. in 1883, the court ruled the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional, arguing that the right to segregate public accommodations and other public spaces was an individual right, inviolable by law. the Plessy vs. Ferguson case marked the beginning of a 58-year period where Jim Crow was largely unchallenged and condoned by the federal government.