Nadir of American race relations
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 were also not spared from such sentiments.
Ku Klux Klan on parade in Springfield, Ohio in 1923.
"And Not This Man?", Harper's Weekly, August 5, 1865. Thomas Nast drew this cartoon; in 1865 he, like many Northerners, remembered blacks' military service and favored granting them voting rights.
"Colored Rule in a Reconstructed(?) State", Harper's Weekly, March 14, 1874. Nine years later, Nast's views on race had changed. He caricatured black legislators as incompetent buffoons.
A quote from Woodrow Wilson used in Birth of a Nation.
Racism in the United States
Racism has been reflected in discriminatory laws, practices, and actions against "racial" or ethnic groups throughout the history of the United States. Since the early colonial era, White Americans have generally enjoyed legally or socially sanctioned privileges and rights which have been denied to members of various ethnic or minority groups at various times. European Americans have enjoyed advantages in matters of education, immigration, voting rights, citizenship, land acquisition, and criminal procedure.
Scars on an enslaved man, Peter, April 2, 1863, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
A group of white men pose for a 1919 photograph as they stand over the body of the Black lynching victim Will Brown before they decide to mutilate and burn them during the Omaha race riot of 1919 in Omaha, Nebraska. Photographs and postcards of lynchings were popular souvenirs in the U.S.
White tenants seeking to prevent Blacks from moving into the housing project erected this sign. Detroit, 1942.
Due to threats and violence against her, U.S. Marshals escorted 6-year-old Ruby Bridges to and from the previously whites only William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans, 1960. As soon as Bridges entered the school, white parents pulled their children out.