Exhibition titled determine, the 400 your struggle for black equality. This second section explores the period from the end of the civil war after the civil war, which ended slavery in the united states, through 1950. And this was a period that witnessed both progress and backlash for black americans. After the civil war, as black virginians and americans embraced new opportunities in the form of access to education, new civil rights, political participation, building new communities, starting to businesses and so forth as on the one hand black lives flourished, under the new promises afforded by freedom in american society. Black people also began to suffer backlash from white establishment that wanted to reassert its power, its sense of supremacy and its control over people of color, and at the same time that we see amazing strides and black process, we also see regress in the form of disenfranchisement, and legalized. Segregation in american. Society so, we will look at a few stories that exemplify that push and pull dynamic of progress and backlash. The section starts with reconstruction and key legislative amendments that fundamentally shape the rights of black people in america the 13th amendment in 1865 ended 246 years of slavery in america. The 14th amendment was ratified in 1868 and guaranteed Citizenship Rights to former slaves and also promised due process and protection under the law to all americans. Its an amendment that is still regularly cited in legal cases today. The 15th amendment was ratified in 1870. It gave black men the right to vote. Women, black and white, would not gain the right to vote until 1920. Black men were given the right to vote in 1870. With the right to vote and the access to political participation, we see black men embracing those opportunities and getting very involved in and active in virginia politics. Peter jacob carter is one of about 100 black men who served in virginias General Assembly from the end of the civil war through 1900. He was one of the longest serving representatives from northampton county. He represents this flowering of a black political activism. It was through assemblyman like Peter Jacob Carter and other black politicians which helped pass legislation creating a Public School system in virginia. Readjusting virginia debt after the war as well as other measures like that some of the objects related to peter jacobs story represent the activism, the eager embrace of political activism of a black man once they got the right to participate in politics. There is a pole book here from Norfolk County which lists the colored voters as they were described registered to vote in 1867. There is also a broadside about a mass meeting gave a Democratic Political association which was an alliance of black men and also white union supporters. They were advocating to give blackmon the right to vote in the waning days of the civil war. That political activism started very early on. Unfortunately, as i said, the white establishment was not happy with this new found power of black people and acted to limit that power. It did so through various measures. Measures designed to disenfranchise black man from political participation. We see that culminate in a new state constitution that was passed in 1902. Thats really the combination of decades worth of measures trying to disenfranchise black voters and black political participation. The 1902 constitution was particularly effective at doing that. It did so primarily through a poll tax. A poll tax of a dollar 50 which might not seem like a lot of money, its about 40 dollars today, but since many virginians in this period could not afford that, the poll tax was incredibly poll successful at disenfranchising voters. Almost 90 of eligible black voters were disenfranchised as a result of that new state constitution. Interestingly, also white voters were disenfranchised at shocking rates. About 50 of eligible white voters were also disenfranchised. By that new poll tax which was part of the 1902 state constitution. Another primary means by which the white political establishment reinserted its control, its sense of racial hierarchy, with through the practice of segregation segregation became legalized through a Landmark Supreme Court decision of 1896 plessy the ferguson. It codified into law the notion of separate but equal. You could maintain racially separate facilities as long as they were equal. So plessy v. Ferguson basically legalized a system of apartheid in america whereby black people were legally separated and denied access to the same facilities as whites. Even though policy v. Ferguson was supposed to allow separate but equal facilities, the facilities for black americans were rarely, if ever, equal to those of white americans. We have an image showing a segregated bus. When people think about the world of segregation, they probably conjure up images such as this. Black people being forced to sit at the back of the bus where white people could sit in the front. Black people were also limited and going about their day to day lives in where they could shop, where they could sit in a movie theater, which public facilities such as pools and libraries that they could use. Even which doors they could enter. Many establishments had separate doors for white and colored people. In the exhibition, we have recreate it this physical structure to remind people i and to force our visitors to think about what choice they are going to make. Are they going to walk through the white only doors or the colored only doors . This was a daily reality of life under segregation in the jim crow era. On the back side of this door we have a display related to the green book. The green book was a travel guide that was published annually by victor green beginning in 1936. This guidebook provided away for black travelers, during a period in which tourism and automotive travel was becoming very popular across america, the green book provided black travelers away to find businesses and establishments like hotels and restaurants or hair salons and so forth that were friendly to black visitors. That would not discriminate against them under jim crow segregation. The green book was an important guide for black travelers which also allowed them to determine their economic power. Where they were going to spend their money. Which businesses they were going to support with their tourist dollars. It allowed black visitors to find those kinds of establishments that were friendly to them. One of the key figures with visitors will encounter in the section of the exhibition is an spencer. She was a renowned poet and civil rights activist from lunch break virginia. Ann spencer was part of the flourishing a black cultural expression beginning in the 1920s after world war one. A flourishing that is variously called the new negro renaissance or the harlem renaissance. While harlem renaissance acknowledges the geographical hub of this flowering of cultural expression was in new york cities vibrant black member hood of harlem, ann spencer made lunch bag, virginia made an important satellite of this renaissance. As i mentioned, she was a poet and she first became known to other members of the new negro renaissance through meeting James Walden Johnson who was visiting lynch, burglary china to establish a chapter of the naacp. Anne spencer was responsible in founding one of the first chapters of the naacp. He would leave her poetry and send it back to harlem where they would be given publishing her poetry in publications. Through her poetry, which was widely admired by her peers, anne spencer became good friends with many important black cultural literary and intellectual features in the middle decades of the