The New South

1. Reconstruction and the New South The New South

2. The Redeemers & Bourbon Rule • At the end of Reconstruction, Democrats regained firm control of Southern politics • The small group of conservative elites that grabbed post-Reconstruction power saw themselves as Redeemers, having re-established “home rule” • Critics referred to them as Bourbons, a term for aristocrats derived from French society • Cut taxes, reduced spending, and cut many public services tied to Reconstruction

3. The Readjuster Challenge • Opposed to the Redeemer plan to pay off prewar and Reconstruction debts in full at the original high interest rates • Demanded that states revise their debt payment procedures to free up more money for state services • Some lobbied for greenbacks and debt relief • The movement was soon discredited by conservative southerners who used racial prejudice to discredit the movement’s large African American following • This would lead many poor white farmers to call for disenfranchisement of blacks

4. Industrialization • “Out-Yankee the Yankees” • Cheap labor, low taxes , and accommodating governments drew many manufacturers from the North to the South • The textile, tobacco, and iron industries grew rapidly in the post-Reconstruction South • Despite dramatic growth in Southern industry, it still only accounted for 10% of total manufacturing

5. Convict-Lease System • Southern states leased gangs of convicted criminals to private companies as a cheap labor supply • The convicts were not paid, fees went to the state, and convicts often had to work in brutal conditions • While this system aided the growth of industry, it was ultimately damaging to the labor force, denying them employment in industries utilizing the system

6. Sharecroppers & Tenant Farming • Southern agriculture after Reconstruction: • Reliance on a few cash crops • Reliance on tenant farming • Misuse of farmland • Crop-lien system • Farmers borrowed money against heir future crops • Often resulted in deeper debt • Tennant Farming • Some farmers could pay their rent in cash • Those who could not pay cash or id not have the supplies they needed would pay their rent with a share of their crops

7. Booker T. Washington & the Atlanta Compromise • Booker T. Washington • Strong advocate for education in the African American community • Encouraged African Americans to focus on vocational skills and training as opposed to traditional education • Believed that respectability would come from adopting the habits of the white middle class • Wanted African Americans in the South to focus less on agitating for political rights and focus more on self-improvement, believing that this would lead to expanded political rights • The Atlanta Compromise • Washington’s philosophy on race relations • Economic gains were more important that political gains • African Americans must make meaningful economic contributions if they are to gain political equality

8. Plessy v Ferguson • Louisiana law required separate seating based on race on railroads • The Supreme Court ruled that separate facilities did not deny African Americans equal rights if the facilities were equal • This ruling was used to keep schools in the South segregated

9. The World of Jim Crow • Voting Restrictions • Poll taxes • Literacy tests • When some states realized that this also disenfranchised poor white, they passed “grandfather clauses” • White Control • Almost every aspect of public life was segregated • Lynchings • 187 lynchings a year across to 1890s • African Americans who had been accused of some crime or who violated expected social behaviors were most often the victims\ • The mobs who carried out these lynchings usually believed they were carrying out a legitimate form of vigilante justice • Ida B. Wells was a black journalist who campaigned against lynchings in the South and fought for anti-lynching laws