The 1877 Compromise traded Black civil rights for a Hayes presidency

Evidence

Following the presidential election of 1876, which came down to disputed returns in Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina, Southern Democrats agreed to what became known as the Compromise of 1877: Republican Rutherford B. Hayes was installed in the White House, and the federal government pulled out the last Union troops from the South. The results were devastating. Over the course of the next generation, white violence prevented Black people from casting ballots, and Southern state legislatures began to revert to all-white rule. The Black activism of the previous decade would continue only within increasingly violent and narrow strictures. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 900

Categorization

• XREF: The Compromise of 1877 as a contested origin or reset point connects to the reader’s case study of how origin dating shapes the deviation-vs-design narrative of American development.