7.6The abandonment of Reconstruction

Reconstruction's promise was crushed by violence and fatigue. White supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan terrorized Black voters and their allies, while Northern commitment waned amid economic depression and scandal. One by one, Southern states fell back under the control of white "Redeemer" Democrats.

The disputed election of 1876 brought the reckoning. In the Compromise of 1877, Republicans kept the presidency in exchange for withdrawing the last federal troops from the South. With federal protection gone, Southern states moved to strip Black citizens of their rights. The constitutional amendments remained on the books, but their promise would lie unfulfilled for nearly a century.