African Americans faced hard times during the Gilded Age (O’Malley, 2004). In the northern factories, they got the most dangerous jobs with low wages for men while women became domestic servants and their children had to labor to further support the family. Labour unions rarely benefited them apart from the Knights of Labour that began to accept this group after 1878.In the south, there was a discontinuity as the civil war had ended slavery and disrupted the social and economic setting . Here African Americans could not get jobs in cotton mills, had no civil or voting rights, and were barred from political participation and interaction with other races, even poor whites to avoid racial dilution of white supremacy. The Jim Crow laws were legitimate laws that allowed open segregation of African Americans in all public places and with time, they began being used in other places. Sharecropping which was undertaken to give Africans land left them in debt and utter poverty ( Barnes & Bowles, 2015) .
African Americans who worked hard and started businesses or became political representatives were often harassed out of their posts or killed under the accusation of having committed a crime; often raping a white woman. To discourage voting, poll taxes and literacy tests were exerted on Africans. A highlight of African racial segregation was public lynching where innocent men were beaten, tortured and hanged. After 1892, at least 100 African Americans were lynched each year ( Barnes & Bowles, 2015) .
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These experiences made life for this group difficult, as it was no better than being slaves. They were viewed less than human and often falsely accused of raping. It also led to abject poverty for this group so they did not accomplish much in this age. One woman named Ida Wells exposed fact that the southern harsh treatment of Africans was economically and socially based to maintain the white man’s control over women and African American men that existed during slavery. Although the Jim Crow laws did not end at her time, she inspired others to see the truth about what was happening to African Americans and future changes ( Barnes & Bowles, 2015) .
References
Barnes, L. D., & Bowles, M. (2015). The American Story:Perspectives and encounters from 1877 . Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/books/AUHIS206.15.2
O'Malley, M. (2004). Exploring U.S. History | alien menace. Retrieved from http://chnm.gmu.edu/exploring/19thcentury/alienmenace/assignment.php
