Racism in The United States and Defenses of Jim Crow
White Southerners encountered problems in learning free labor management after the end of slavery, and they resented black Americans, who represented the Confederacy's Civil War defeat: "With white supremacy challenged throughout the South, many whites sought to protect their former status by threatening African Americans who exercised their new rights." White Democrats used their power to segregate public spaces and facilities in law and reestablish social dominance over blacks in the South.
One rationale for the systematic exclusion of black Americans from southern public society was that it was for their own protection. An early 20th-century scholar suggested that having allowed blacks in white schools would mean "constantly subjecting them to adverse feeling and opinion", which might lead to "a morbid race consciousness". This perspective took anti-black sentiment for granted, because bigotry was widespread in the South after slavery became a racial caste.
Read more about this topic: Jim Crow Laws
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