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.
Persons:
Jim Crow, White, Black, Jason Phillips
Organizations:
Reconstruction, Mississippi Historical Society, Mississippi Department of Archives, Democratic, Republican
Locations:
Mississippi