rches reflected the call-response patternsof traditional African-American music. These churches were responses of alienation segregation from white churches. It was leaders of these churches who provided the majority of leadership in the South after the Civil War. The organization of campaigns and boycotts against segregated public schools and public facilities began. The laws passed were very easy to evade. In 1896, Plessy vs. Ferguson fully legalized segregation using the phrase "separate but equal" for justification. However separate was never equal in this case. Thus American apartheid continued.The Civil War gave a glimmer of hope for economic equality. Thousands of freedmen were to receive 40-acre plots of land to farm themselves. Up to now blacks in agriculture were forced to sharecrop for wealthy for wealthy white landowners that paid them barely enough to survive and never enough to get ahead. The land for these freedmen was supposed to come from confiscated lands of Confederate planters. The entire plan was aborted when Andrew Johnson pardoned these planters. Although freed blacks made enormous contributions during the Civil War, their economic standing steadily declined. Although there was some geographical and market based reasons for the decline, the primary reason was racial attitudes. Whites began to seek white workers and craftsmen. Unions began to exclude black members and new manufacturing plants would not hire blacks. Despite this economic situation, blacks continued their battle for equality through politics. In the 1880's southern blacks continued to vote in large numbers despite intimidation and violence. Through this perseverance blacks were sent as representatives to Congress and state legislatures. Despite this black representation, there was still the implementation of Jim Crow laws in the state of Mississippi further reinforced segregation. This was a big step but not enough to make an im...
