President Obama Changed America

The Compromise of 1877, which occurred after the period known as Reconstruction, directly after the so called Civil War from 1865 to 1877, with some scholars extending Reconstruction through 1880, was a deal that was brokered by Democrats and Republicans, orchestrated to remove the Republican controlled government's federal troops, who aided enforcing laws and protecting the newly freed formerly enslaved people, in exchange for naming Republican Rutherford B. Hayes the U.S. president, setting the stage for the nearly one hundred years of discriminatory laws and customs imposed upon African Americans.

An excerpt from above:

The Compromise of 1877 decided the outcome of the controversial presidential election of 1876 through a series of back-room discussions between Congressmen and private interest groups, and resulted in the retreat of the federal government from enforcing the 14th and 15th amendments for blacks. The Congress had passed the Civil Rights Act in 1875, making it illegal to discriminate on the basis of race, but there was a national backlash against civil rights that led to the Supreme Court's nullification of the Civil Rights Act in 1883. North and south began a period of reconciliation, characterized by acquiescence on the part of Northern liberals and government officials to the desires of the white south to institutionalize its discriminatory and racist beliefs.

Many Southern blacks had become politically active after the Civil War, but after 1877, most lost the right to vote or to hold government positions. In 1878, the Congress forbade the use of the Army to protect black voters from the intimidation and physical violence with which they were regularly threatened at the polls. By 1894, Congress ceased appropriations for federal marshals to protect black voters; meaning blacks were vulnerable to intimidation and threats of ex-confederates. In 1901, the last black representative lost his seat in Congress. It would be 30 years before a black person could gain a seat in the House or Senate.

The above mentioned U.S. representative was George Henry White, from North Carolina.

As the only representative of African descent, many of his speeches spoke of the barbaric treatment of the formerly enslaved Black citizens. Worthy of note is the fact Mr. White introduced the first anti lynching law in Congress.

The 109th United States Congress, in 2005, passed Senate Resolution 39, apologizing for its inaction in the past, acknowledging the U.S. Senate's failure to address the crime of lynching on the occasions legislation was introduced in the U.S. Senate to address it.

Among those in opposition to the resolution at its signing in 2005, 1 Democrat and 19 Republicans, including the two Republican Senators from the state of Mississippi, with that state having the horrid, historic distinction of being the state with the most confirmed lynchings.