Part 2, Hour 1

Hour three of the series examines the years 1877-1896, a transitional period that saw visions of a “New South” set the stage for the rise of Jim Crow and the undermining of Reconstruction’s legal and political legacy. While some African Americans attempted to migrate, the vast majority remained in the South, where sharecropping, convict leasing, disfranchisement, and lynchings drew a “color line” that limited opportunities and destroyed lives. Although their“brief moment in the sun” had been cast in shadow, African Americans refused to retreat and used their voices and pens to continue to fight for those rights afforded to white Americans.