Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America

by Michael Harriot

In 1877, fifteen white men—five U.S. senators, five representatives, and five Supreme Court justices*—gathered in a Washington, D.C., room and decided to give the disputed electoral votes to Rutherford B. Hayes, the Republican candidate supported by Black voters, essentially making him the president. In exchange, the whites-only room also agreed to a plan that included three notable provisions: REMOVAL OF TROOPS FROM THE CONFEDERATE STATES: In many places in the South, especially Louisiana and South Carolina, the military presence was the only thing protecting Black freedmen from white supremacist violence. FUNDS TO INDUSTRIALIZE THE SOUTH AND RESTORE ITS ECONOMY: While this never really happened, it was clearly a nod to the white supremacists who couldn’t compete with the Black laborers. THE RIGHT TO HANDLE BLACK PEOPLE AS THEY WISHED: The federal government agreed to essentially disregard the Constitution’s equal protection clause. The “right to handle Black people as they wish” became known as Jim Crow. Across the country—not just in the South—states passed segregation laws and disenfranchised Black people en masse. The Compromise of 1877 was the definition of white supremacy: Black voters had given Hayes the presidency, and in exchange, he and his white co-conspirators chose white supremacy over equality.