Memories of Hayti: African American Community in Durham, North Carolina, 1890–1970

Abstract

The Jim Crow era is naturally portrayed as an oppressive era for African Americans. African Americans’ civil rights were eroded through US Supreme Court cases such as the Civil Rights Cases of 1883 and Plessy vs. Ferguson, thus sanctioning and enforcing racial segregation.1 Disfranchisement was the order of the day as restrictive policies such as the poll tax, literacy test, grandfather clause, and the white primary were directed against African American voters.2 Lastly, racial violence such as lynchings and race riots kept African Americans in a state of constant terror and intimidation.3