As the South got back on its feet, former slaves and their descendants were in for eighty more years of oppression and humiliation. America was just beginning her own version of "Apartheid" (the Afrikaans word for "separateness"). Even as the United States integrated the South, it segregated black Americans. As the Union repatriated the South, the South subjugated blacks (with the blessing of the federal legal system).

How could American apartheid exist in light of the Bill of Rights? How could "legal" segregation occur when Congress had passed Constitutional Amendments to protect the former slaves and their descendants? Did the 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery forever, have no meaning? Didn't the 14th Amendment guarantee due process to all people? If the 15th Amendment granted black men the right to vote, how could one ever say American law created a system of apartheid? Because America also had what came to be known as "Jim Crow" laws.

GO TO STORY INDEX