ising Populist movement. It became evident to both Democrats
and populists that the Negro vote had become the deciding vote in many
states. White farmers and white aristocrats both felt uneasy over this
state of affairs.

The result was widespread agreement to systematically and legally
eliminate Negroes from politics altogether. State constitutions were
either amended or rewritten. Literacy tests and poll taxes became
standard devices for limiting Negro voting. The "understanding test"
required a citizen to interpret a portion of the state constitution to
the satisfaction of the registrar. The severity of the test varied
invariably with the color of the applicant. The "grandfather clause"
prohibited those whose ancestors had not voted from exercising the
franchise. Because slaves had not voted, their descendants were
disqualified. Although the Fifteenth Amendment had been designed to
guarantee the vote to the ex-slave, the South now evaded it. Although
both major parties complained about this disenfranchisement and condemned
it as being unconstitutional, neither party took any action. The Supreme
Court also played an important part in restricting the freedom of
freedmen. In 1883 it declared the 1875 Civil Rights Act to be
unconstitutional. This act had made it illegal for individuals to
discriminate in public accommodations. Although it had never been
enforced, the court's decision nevertheless, came as a setback, because
it was the signal to the South that through Jim Crow legislation Negroes
could be kept in "their place." Under slavery there had been considerable
social contact between the races. Segregation as a social system was
begun in the North prior to the Civil War, but, during the last two
decades of the nineteenth century, Southern states made it a legal
requirement. Its relentless growth is carefully outlined by C. Vann
Woodward in his book The Strange Career of Jim Crow. Finally the South
developed two societies with two sets of institutions: separate railroad
cars, separate waiting rooms, separate wash rooms, separate drinking
fountains, separate hospitals, separate schools, separate restaurants,
separate cemeteries and, although there was only one judicial system,
separate Bibles for taking oaths.

In 1896 the Supreme Court gave its blessing to the Jim Crow system.
Plessy, a Louisiana mulatto, insisted on riding in the white car on the
train. He was arrested and found guilty of violating the state