The Dawn of a New Era of Oppression
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Charles M. Blow, The New York Times
I am fascinated, and alarmed, by the swiftness with which periods of backlash take shape after surges of Black progress, and I believe that we have entered another such period.
Much of my inquiry on the matter has focused on the period after Reconstruction was allowed to fail and that saw Jim Crow begin to rise. Much of this was embodied by the state of Mississippi, which in 1870 was majority Black. White supremacists in the state developed the Mississippi Plan in advance of the state’s 1875 elections to use fraud and the intimidation of Black voters, including through violence, to retake state power from progressives.
The plan worked. As the historian Jason Phillips wrote for the Mississippi Historical Society and the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, “Democratic candidates committed to white supremacy replaced every Republican incumbent in the 1875 elections.”
The racists took control of the state’s legislature and judiciary, impeached the Republican governor and installed a replacement of their liking.
Learn more about the Jim Crow Era in this virtual exhibit gallery.
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