1. Disenfranchising
African Americans
8.5-4—Summarize the policies and actions
of South Carolina’s political leadership in
implementing discriminatory laws that
established a system of racial
segregation, intimidation, and violence.

2. Background
• 1876- Governor Wade Hampton & the
“Redeemers” had political control & power in
SC
• Conservative Democrats had “redeemed” SC
from the Republicans by reminding them of
the “lost cause” (ie. Civil War)
• Antebellum elite regained political control &
wanted to restore SC as close as possible to its
pre Civil War conditions with limited taxes

3. Disenfranchised
• Governor Hampton-
keep up the status quo
of Reconstruction
• Other Democratic
Party members-
Disenfranchisement of
African American
voters
• Congressional districts
redrawn to make only
one district a African
American majority
• This gerrymandering
limited the number of
African Americans
elected to the US
CongressWade Hampton

4. Populist Ben Tillman
• He was a Populists b/c he
appealed to the values & needs
of the common people (poor
white farmers) against the
Conservative elite
• (unlike other Populist) He did
not support the right of African
Americans to vote
• Led to increased violence &
lynching of African Americans
who where opposed to the
Populist Party
• Tillman ran on a platform of
white superiority
• Tillman’s bigotry & racist
rhetoric led to a reemergence
of violence and terror from the
Reconstruction Era
• “Race Baiting”The People’s Party Video

5. Senator Tillman
• 1895, Tillman urged his
followers to call for a new
state constitution to replace
the Reconstruction
constitution of 1868
• Wanted to make sure the
black majority did not support
the Conservative opposition
• New constitutions required:
– Literacy test to vote (Eight Box
Law used)
– Required a poll tax to be paid 6
months before the election
• Poor farmers had little money
so far ahead of the harvest
• Poor, literate white voters were
protected by the “grandfather
clause” (ability to vote if their
grandfathers voted in 1860)

7. Eight Box Law:
• A legal ways to keep blacks from voting after Reconstruction (1882)
• Every precinct had eight labeled ballot boxes
• Votes would count only if the correct ballot was placed in the
correct box
• Some people opposed the bill because it would also keep poor
whites
from voting
• Reducing the African American vote was worth it in the end to the
political elite, even if some whites could not exercise their right to
vote

8. “Separate But Equal”
• New constitution continued….
• Required separate schools black and white children
• SC passed Jim Crow Laws (video)
• Supreme Court ruled such laws were constitutional in 1896
– Ruling- “Separate but Equal” facilities satisfied the 14th
amendment’s requirement for equal protection under the law
(Plessy v Ferguson)
• African Americans were affected directly & indirectly by the
Jim Crow Laws for over 6 decades
• SC African Americans did protest against their
exclusion, but were quickly silenced through
intimidation, threats, & lynching
Video: Plessy v Ferguson
Jim Crow
Video