January 1898

Louisiana's 1898 constitution introduced the 'grandfather clause' — exempting from literacy tests and poll taxes anyone whose father or grandfather had been eligible to vote before 1867 (i.e., before Black voting rights), thereby ensuring poor and illiterate whites could vote while excluding Black voters. Louisiana's registered Black voters fell from 130,334 in 1896 to 5,320 in 1900 — a 96% reduction in four years. By 1904, there were only 1,342 Black registered voters in Louisiana. The grandfather clause spread to other Southern states and was not declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court until Guinn v. United States (1915).

By the late 1890s, de facto and de jure segregation extends to post offices, federal courthouses, and military installations in the South. Black postal workers in Southern cities are transferred or dismissed. Federal buildings maintain separate entrances and waiting areas. The federal government's accommodation of Southern segregation customs, which will be formalized under Woodrow Wilson in 1913, is already visible in the 1890s pattern of non-enforcement.

De facto and de jure segregation extends to post offices, federal courthouses, and military installations in the South by the late 1890s. Black postal workers in Southern cities are transferred or dismissed. Federal buildings maintain separate entrances. Federal accommodation of Southern segregation customs — to be formalized under Woodrow Wilson in 1913 — is already visible.