Neither party in Washington seemed particularly interested in Black lives. Despite Abraham Lincoln’s sacrifice and the promise of Ulysses Grant’s administration, Republicans had ultimately betrayed Black Americans, cutting a deal with Southern Democrats to pull federal troops out of the South in 1877 in exchange for installing Republican Rutherford Hayes in the White House. This allowed Reconstruction to collapse under white robes, rifles, and ropes, and the planter class to come back from secession with renewed strength and ferocity. Now these former Confederate states were fighting modernity
...more
