But political
opportunism spurned comprehensive plans, and the negro suddenly found
himself forced into social, political, and economic competition with
the white man.
The social and political struggle that followed was short-lived. There
were a few desperate years under the domination of the carpetbagger
and the Ku Klux Klan, a period of physical coercion and intimidation.
Within a decade the negro vote was uncast or uncounted, and the
grandfather clauses soon completed the political mastery of the former
slave owner. A strict interpretation of the Civil Rights Act denied
the application of the equality clause of the Constitution to social
equality, and the social as well as the political separation of the
two stocks was also accomplished. "Jim Crow," cars, separate
accommodations in depots and theaters, separate schools, separate
churches, attempted segregations in cities--these are all symbolic of
two separate races forcibly united by constitutional amendments.
But the economic struggle continued, for the black man, even if
politically emasculated and socially isolated, had somehow to earn a
living. In their first reaction of anger and chagrin, some of the
whites here and there made attempts to reduce freedmen to their former
servitude, but their efforts were effectually checked by the Fifteenth
Amendment.
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