Final answer:
Black legislators in Georgia were removed from office due to racial discrimination, with conservative whites exploiting legal and extralegal means to disenfranchise African American voters and legislators during the Reconstruction era.
Step-by-step explanation:
Black legislators in Georgia were removed from office primarily due to racial discrimination. The removal of these legislators in 1868 can be traced to the actions of conservative whites who employed multiple methods to disenfranchise African Americans including violence, voter suppression tactics, and legal challenges that leveraged ingrained prejudicial systems. The twenty-eight black members of the Georgia legislature were expelled by a vote from whites, including ex-Confederates who technically should not have held office under the Fourteenth Amendment.
The federal government's end of enforcement of Reconstruction policies led to the rise of white supremacy and subsequent disenfranchisement of black voters. State legislatures passed constitutions and laws incorporating discriminatory devices such as literacy tests and poll taxes, supporting systematic segregation and disenfranchisement efforts known as 'Jim Crow' laws that targeted African American voters and representatives.