Why did more formal segregation of African Americans develop in the south after Reconstruction?

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Why did more formal segregation of African Americans develop in the south after Reconstruction?

After the Reconstruction Period, despite having gained many civil rights in theory, formal segregation of African Americans developed in the south, especially in Alabama and Mississippi, where there was a large number of African Americans.

    By 1877, most Southern states had regained control of themselves from the Northern states and began to reverse the civil rights of African Americans, notably through Jim Crow segregation laws. The laws were named after a fictional character (Jim Crow), which was a white stereotype of African Americans, as a lazy, dirty, violent and stupid man. The laws formally segregated blacks and whites from each other, in eight Southern states. They legalised segregation on trains, even though it had been happening informally prior to the introduction of the laws. The rulings also enforced segregation in waiting rooms and toughened the segregation laws in Southern schools, which had been established after the Civil War. After 1891 the regulations expanded to include segregation in cinemas and theatres, stores, parks, cemeteries, swimming pools, playgrounds. Sports teams were also segregated, regardless of the fact that the majority of teams wanted the top players not players of the same race.

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    The segregation laws arose as a result of fear of African Americans being able to be equal to whites. Many white Southerners saw blacks as financial opponents in the employment market, as many blacks were being given jobs because of they were willing to work for a lower wage. Furthermore, they believed that African Americans were the natural lower class and should always be so. Also, the theory of Social Darwinism strengthened their beliefs; this theory applied Charles Darwin’s concept of evolution to humans and races, in the idea that only the fittest races would survive and the ...

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