6.4: The New South
6.4: Explain how various factors contributed to continuity and change in the “New South” from 1877 to 1898.
In the last set of notes, we talked about westward expansion and its effects and now, we’re going to be moving on to a discussion about the New South.
The New South - Defined
So what was the New South? Previously, we had the Old South, which was what Southern culture, politics, and economics was like before the Civil War. But after the South lost the Civil War, a New South was created to fix the Old South’s problems. Henry Grady, an editor for The Atlanta Constitution, coined the term New South. He argued that the South should adopt new capitalist values to become self-sufficient, similar to the North. He wanted economic diversity, laissez-faire capitalism, and industrial growth. In the following years, southern cities such as Atlanta would follow this model, becoming industrial centers. Atlanta even began to outpace New England in textile manufacturing due to the construction of new railroads. Basically, during this period, the South wanted to become more like the North.
Figures of Equality
But there were many forms of resistance to segregation and discrimination as well. Many reformers during this time fought for equality for black people. For example, Ida. B. Wells was the editor of a black newspaper in the South and published papers arguing against lynching and Jim Crow Laws. Henry Turner founded the International Migration Society in 1894. This organization helped black Americans migrate and flee to Africa, especially to Liberia. Booker T. Washington, an African-American educator, argued that for change to happen, black people needed to become educated and economically self-sufficient. This led to many schools across the South being created for African Americans.
The New South - Continuity
However, not everybody wanted the South to become more industrial. Industrialization mostly occurred in the cities. The plantations and farms, on the other hand, continued to stay agricultural. They continued to produce cotton with manual labor. Although slavery was abolished, it was soon replaced with sharecropping. This was a system in which laborers would work on the fields and give a portion of their harvest to the owner, in exchange for being given tools and a home. Sharecropping led many African Americans to stay in poverty after the Civil War. After federal troops were removed from the South due to the Compromise of 1877, segregation soon returned because there was no one left to make sure equality was being practiced.
The continuation of segregation led to the landmark Supreme Court case of Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896. In this case, the Supreme Court ruled that segregation was constitutional as long as the separate facilities were equal, leading to the phrase “separate but equal”. However, the segregated facilities did not turn out to be equal and were instead used to continue promoting the idea of white supremacy. Throughout the South, Jim Crow laws were enacted to segregate every aspect of society, from restrooms and drinking fountains to public transportation and schools. These laws also prevented black people from serving on juries or holding public office. Any black person accused of a crime would often not receive a fair trial and instead be executed by the Ku Klux Klan or by lynch mobs. The people who participated in these mobs, on the other hand, would not be punished.
