Nadir of American race relations

Nadir of American race relations
1877 – Early 20th century
Ku Klux Klan on parade in Springfield, Ohio in 1923.
Including
Chronology
Reconstruction era Harlem Renaissance
Civil rights movement class-skin-invert-image

The nadir of American race relations was the period in African-American history and the history of the United States from the end of Reconstruction in 1877 through the early 20th century, when racism in the country, and particularly anti-black racism, was more open and pronounced than it had ever been during any other period in the nation's history. During this period, African Americans lost access to many of the civil rights which they had gained during Reconstruction. Anti-Black violence, lynchings, segregation, legalized racial discrimination, and expressions of white supremacy all increased. Asian Americans and Hispanic Americans were also not spared from such sentiments.

Historian Rayford Logan coined the phrase in his 1954 book The Negro in American Life and Thought: The Nadir, 1877–1901. Logan tried to determine the period when "the Negro's status in American society" reached its lowest point. He argued for 1901 as its end, suggesting that race relations improved after that year; other historians, such as John Hope Franklin and Henry Arthur Callis, argued for dates as late as 1923.[1]

The term continues to be used; most notably, it is used in books by James W. Loewen as recently as 2006,[2] and it is also used in books by other scholars.[3][4][5] Loewen chooses later dates, arguing that the post-Reconstruction era was in fact one of widespread hope for racial equity due to idealistic Northern support for civil rights. In Loewen's view, the true nadir only began when Northern Republicans ceased supporting Southern Blacks' rights around 1890, and it lasted until the United States entered World War II in 1941. This period followed the financial Panic of 1873 and a continuing decline in cotton prices. It overlapped with both the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era, and was characterized by the nationwide sundown town phenomenon.[2]

Logan's focus was exclusively on African Americans in the Southern United States, but the time period which he covered also represents the worst period of anti-Chinese discrimination and wider anti-Asian discrimination which was due to fear of the so-called Yellow Peril, which included harassment and violence on the West Coast of the United States, such as the destruction of Chinatown, Denver as well as anti-Asian discrimination in Canada,[6] particularly after the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.[7]

  1. ^ Logan 1997, p. xxi
  2. ^ a b Loewen, James W. (2006). Sundown towns: A hidden dimension of American racism. New York: Touchstone. pp. 24–43. ISBN 978-0743294485. OCLC 71778272.
  3. ^ Brown & Webb 2007, pp. 180, 208, 340
  4. ^ Hornsby 2008, pp. 312, 381, 391
  5. ^ Martens 207, p. 113
  6. ^ Chinese American Society 2010, p. 52 sidebar "The Anti-Chinese Hysteria of 1885–86".
  7. ^ Weir 2013, p. 130