Jim Crow part 4 | The Gilded Age (1865-1898) | US History | Khan Academy

- [Voiceover] So we've been
talking about the system

of Jim Crow segregation

and in the last video we left off in 1876.

And in 1876 there was a
contested presidential election

between a Republican candidate
named Rutherford B. Hayes

and a Democratic candidate
named Samuel J. Tilden.

And in this election there
was one of the rare cases

where Tilden actually won the popular vote

whereas Hayes won the electoral vote.

So there's a standoff
in Congress for months

over how this presidential
election is going to end

and eventually they make
kind of a backroom deal

known as the Compromise of 1877.

And in this compromise the
Democrats and the Republicans

agree that Hayes, a Republican,

will get to be President
of the United States.

In exchange the military forces

that have been occupying the South,

especially the last two states

of Louisiana and South Carolina

and have been enforcing the 14th Amendment

or the equal citizenship of
African Americans in the South

they're going to leave,

they're going to go back to their barracks

and will no longer interfere

in the political system of the South.

So with the Compromise of 1877

the Republican Party which
has been standing behind

the rights of African Americans,

remember the Republicans were
the Party of Abraham Lincoln,

pretty much gives up as a
Party on trying to ensure

the racial equality of African Americans.

Now why did they do this?

Well, I think mainly this
was a question of weariness

and giving up on their part.

Remember that the Civil War ended in 1865,

now it's 12 years later in 1877

and there are still Federal
troops in the South.

So imagine if you were a
parent in Massachusetts

and you thought that your son

who was enlisted in the Union
Army was going to come home

in 1865 and now it's 1877 and
he's still in South Carolina

it seems like a long time to fight a war.

So that's one part of it.

The other part of it is that in 1873

there is an economic panic,
this is an early Depression.

You know we often think
of the Great Depression

as the only time the
United States was stricken

with an economic downturn
but before the Depression

there were about 20 year
cycles of boom and bust.

So in 1873 there was an
economic bust that meant

that people had less money
to throw at the problem

of reconstruction in the South.

And I would say the last
part of this is a combination

of racism and the new labor
movement in the North.

So as whites in the North
got farther and farther away

from the Civil War the animating spirit

of abolition started to
fade among many Northerners.

The late 19th century was an
era of increasing racialization

especially as new ethnic classes
came into the United States

from Southern and Eastern Europe

and so there was a new
interpretation of race

that really came to the
foreground in this time period

which we call Social Darwinism

and we'll talk more about
that in other videos.

But the interpretation
of racial difference

and hierarchy among the races
became more broadly accepted

throughout the United States
not just in the South.

So in 1877 the Federal
troops in the South,

that are remaining, pack
their bags and go home

meaning that African
Americans in the South

have no one to protect them
from the Southern governments

and so within months many of
these governments pass the laws

which we now call Jim Crow laws.

And these are the laws

which prevent African
Americans from voting,

prevent intermarriage
between whites and blacks,

and also enact all of these separations

of public accommodations

that we now associate with Jim Crow,

sitting in the back of the bus,

using a separate water fountain.

Now if it sounds like these sorts of laws

are directly in contradiction
with the 14th Amendment

which says that laws cannot
target a specific race,

that there's equal
protection under the law

for everyone born in the United States

you're right that's exactly
what these laws are.

They are a contradiction
of the 14th Amendment.

And in 1896 a man named
Homer Plessy was arrested

for sitting in a white train compartment.

You thought Rosa Parks was the first

but in fact it's Homer Plessy

who tries to desegregate trains.

In fact he's trying to
test the constitutionality

of having segregated
train compartments in 1896

and his case goes all the
way to the Supreme Court

which rules that it is
fine to separate the races

as long as separate
accommodations are equal.

So this is the place where
separate but equal comes in.

Now in theory, separate
accommodations for whites and blacks

were supposed to be equal,

in reality they almost never
were and in fact it was the

very separation itself
that implied the inequality

and that is what the
NAACP is going to argue

in the Brown versus Board
of Education case in 1954

which overturns this doctrine
of separate but equal.

But in-between this
period of 1877 and 1954

Jim Crow laws were on the books

in all of the Southern states.

But I don't want you to come away thinking

that things were terrible in the South

and that the North was a racial utopia

even though segregation laws
and violence such as lynching

to enforce segregation laws
existed mainly in the South,

de facto segregation and
widespread racial prejudice

also existed in the North
particularly in housing

and job discrimination.

And of course, 1954,

the Brown versus Board
of Education decision

didn't end segregation
or end racial prejudice

in the United States, it's
enforcing the end of segregation

and enforcing the end of
some of these de facto forms

of segregation and racial
prejudice in the North

that will be the real focus
of the Civil Rights Movement.

So I think the real
tragedy of the Jim Crow era

was that it didn't have
to be this way, in fact,

it was just in this
presidential election of 1876

that the Federal government
more or less gave up

on protecting the rights
of African Americans.

It's interesting to imagine
what life in the South

might have been like

had the Federal government not given up.

Perhaps it would be very
different, perhaps it would not

but it's hard not to mourn

the lost opportunity of
reconstruction, this 12 year period

where African Americans had voting rights

and often served in public office.

Instead, the United States
doomed African American citizens

in the South to another almost 100 years

of second class status in our society.