Changes

==Reconstruction and Jim Crow==

==Reconstruction and Jim Crow==

During [[Reconstruction]], Radical Republicans tried to guarantee equal rights for emancipated slaves after the [[American Civil War]]. They succeeded in passing the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments, which in theory required equal protection of the laws and an equal right to vote. President [[Ulysses Grant]] successfully suppressed the [[Ku Klux Klan]] when it used violence to turn back black gains.  The Republican coalition in the South fell apart in the 1870s, and conservative white [[Redeemers]] took control.  The Redeemers were paternalistic toward blacks but they confronted a [[Populist]] element in the 1890s that demanded strict segregation, called [[Jim Crow]].

During [[Reconstruction]], Radical Republicans tried to guarantee equal rights for emancipated slaves after the [[American Civil War]]. They succeeded in passing the [[Fourteenth Amendment]] and [[Fifteenth Amendment]], which in theory required equal protection of the laws and an equal right to vote. President [[Ulysses Grant]] successfully suppressed the [[Ku Klux Klan]] when it used violence to turn back black gains.  The Republican coalition in the South fell apart in the 1870s, and conservative white [[Redeemers]] took control.  The Redeemers were paternalistic toward blacks but they confronted a [[Populist]] element in the 1890s that demanded strict segregation, called [[Jim Crow]].

The Supreme Court allowed segregation in 1896, and black leaders such as [[Booker T. Washington]] worked to build an alliance of black businessmen and farmers with benevolent whites, using education as the tool to eventually achieve equality. Militant blacks led by [[W.E.B. DuBois]] and the [[NAACP]] demanded immediate redress. For a brief while around 1920 militant black separatists gained strength.  While blacks slowly improved their economic status in the South in the 20th century, despite lynchings, they remained second class citizens with very little political power. Blacks began moving in large numbers to the North to meet the labor shortages during World War I and World War II.  By the 1950s they had a political base in Harlem (New York City) and Chicago, but still very little power. [[Jim Crow]] remained as strong as ever in the South, where white Democrats had near-total control.

The Supreme Court allowed segregation in 1896, and black leaders such as [[Booker T. Washington]] worked to build an alliance of black businessmen and farmers with benevolent whites, using education as the tool to eventually achieve equality. Militant blacks led by [[W.E.B. DuBois]] and the [[NAACP]] demanded immediate redress. For a brief while around 1920 militant black separatists gained strength.  While blacks slowly improved their economic status in the South in the 20th century, despite lynchings, they remained second class citizens with very little political power. Blacks began moving in large numbers to the North to meet the labor shortages during World War I and World War II.  By the 1950s they had a political base in Harlem (New York City) and Chicago, but still very little power. [[Jim Crow]] remained as strong as ever in the South, where white Democrats had near-total control.