Depth: Gilded Age - 1875 - 95

Question 1

Overall extent of progress in the period for AAs?

Answer 1

Although there was some progress made for AAs in the Gilded age, ultimately it remained a period of violent, systematic suppression enabled by the Federal Govt which engendered the ‘Progressive age’

Question 2

Political situation for AAs - negative examples

Answer 2

1877 Hayes-Tilden compromise - allowed South to return to racist notions/free from restrictions

1896 - Plessy v. Fergusson = SC recognised ‘separate but equal’ segregation as constitutional

• Many states (esp. in the South) used a variety of legal mechanisms to erode Black CR i.e poll taxes, literacy tests, Grandfather Clauses, Jim Crow laws
• JC laws enabled the legal disenfranchisement of AAs

Question 3

Political situation for AAs - positives

Answer 3

Gilded age arg. a period of Black political mobilisation.

• Washerwoman’s strike 1881 mobilised 3000+
• KOL, Colored Farmer’s alliance & Black populist movement in the 1880s - 90s which acc won several key elections (although violently dismantled)
• Increased political involvement, many black men became lawmen i.e Bass Revees a US Deputy Marhsall or Hiram Revels the 1st Black senator

Question 4

Soc

Answer 4

• Whites still violently resisting attempts at integration, many AA communities faced violent attacks e.g. Wilmington riot in 1898 & Leflore County, Mississippi 1889.

Question 5

Soc.

Answer 5

• 1865 only 1 in 20 AAs could read, by 1900 = 1 in 2 could read
• Growth of AA education with the estab. of Black universities like Tuskegee (1881) & Howard (1867)
• Strengthening of Black communities through Churches & the creation of all-black towns like Allensworth, Cali.

Question 6

Econ.

Answer 6

• Many AAs esp. in the South were financially trapped in the pernicious sharecropping system
• Most job opps = v. low paid
• Debt peonage ravagedrural communities = 90% of AA population, huge econ. disparity

Question 7

Econ.

Answer 7

Still had some economic leverage

• 4 AA banks
• Approx. 42,000 AAs with professional jobs i.e lawyers, teachers.
• Many black owned businesses started to emerge i.e. B.T. Washington’s Tuskegee institute which received backing from Whites/the state of Alabama