African
Americans faced very rough conditions in the South in 1900. White attitudes toward African
Americans were very negative and had changed very little since the end of the Civil War. Many
whites thought that African Americans were inferior. Laws known as the "Jim Crow laws"
were passed to reflect this way of thinking. As a result of the separate but equal doctrine
established in the Plessy v Ferguson Supreme Court case, African Americans
were legally segregated from whites in many places, including educational settings, train cars,
bathrooms, and other places of public accommodation. African American men also had a difficult
time getting well-paying jobs and were often forced to work on farms as hired
laborers.
Additionally, African Americans faced other obstacles. The pursuit
of equal rights could not advance, and in many cases, the struggle to be seen as human was a
matter of life and deathSouthern whites were regularly lynching blacks with impunity. African
Americans also found it difficult to vote, as poll taxes and literacy tests, instated
specifically to suppress the black vote, served their purpose. Many African Americans couldn't
afford to pay the taxes and/or couldnt pass the literacy tests because they had little income
and/or little to no educational training. African Americans were also threatened and intimidated
by groups like the Ku Klux Klan that tried to terrorize them and committed heinous crimes
against them. Life was very difficult for most African Americans in the South in
1900.
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