Final answer:
After the Civil War, white Southerners enacted Black Codes, sharecropping, and Jim Crow laws to maintain economic superiority over African Americans. Voting suppression tactics like property qualification laws further marginalized black political power. Both poor whites and African Americans were disenfranchised and kept in economic subjugation.
Step-by-step explanation:
Efforts to Undermine Economic Equality in the South
The struggle for economic equality in the postbellum South was marked by significant resistance from white Southerners keen on maintaining a socio-economic order that supported white supremacy. Economic barriers, including the imposition of Black Codes, restricted African Americans' rights and economic mobility. Sharecropping became a widespread practice that economically exploited African Americans and kept them tied to the land, mirroring the former system of enslavement.
White Southerners also legislated to erode political power held by African Americans, notably through the implementation of mechanisms such as property qualification laws, gerrymandering, poll taxes, and Jim Crow laws, which ensured a segregated and unequal society. The suppression of the black vote and violence against black individuals seeking to assert their rights was endemic. The convict-lease system further entrenched forced labor, effectively continuing slavery under another guise.
These oppressive measures were not reserved for African Americans alone; poor whites also suffered disenfranchisement and economic hardship. Southern politics during this era were characterized by strategies designed to prevent both African Americans and poor whites from experiencing economic equality, ensuring that the wealthy elite maintained economic dominance over the larger population.