ABSTRACT
Racial and ethnic relations were explosive during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The country was experiencing rapid social changes combined with unprecedented immigration. In the post–Civil War era, many white southerners were interested in reestablishing white supremacy in the aftermath of slavery. Three significant pieces of legislation, passed after the Civil War ended, transformed southern race relations dramatically for a short period of time. The Thirteenth Amendment permanently abolished slavery throughout the United States (US); The Fourteenth Amendment made former slaves citizens of the US with full citizenship rights; and the Fifteenth Amendment gave black men the right to vote by prohibiting the denial of that right on the basis of race or color. Sociologists emphasize the importance of assimilation to achieve racial harmony. However, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in the US, whites prevented African Americans from fully assimilating into the dominant culture and, instead, promoted racial/ethnic conflict.
