While corrupt, party machines served the important function of integrating newcomers and the urban poor into politics. Southern blacks, predominantly former slaves, had few allies in the post- Reconstruction period to help them become full participants in the political system. Ratified in 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment granted African American males the right to vote, a privilege they exercised freely throughout the Reconstruction period, electing large numbers of African Americans to local, state, and national offices, including seats in both houses of Congress. Between 1866 and 1876 fifteen African Americans served in the House of Representatives. After Reconstruction ended in 1878, the number of African American congressmen declined, but a few continued to be reelected, including John Roy Lynch, a former slave, who served as the speaker of the Mississippi House of Representatives and as a Republican congressman from 1873 to 1883.

Disfranchising African Americans.

In the 1880s a...