MikeDunnAuthor<p>Today in Labor History July 8, 1876: White Democrats attacked African-American Republicans in the Hamburg massacre, in South Carolina. In an act of voter suppression prior to the 1876 United States presidential election, 100 white members of the Red Shirts, a racist rifle club, attacked black members of the National Guards, torturing and murdering six of them. In the months prior to the 1876 election, whites killed scores of black people in the South. When the election finally occurred, the democrat, Samuel J. Tilden, received 184 uncontested electoral votes, just under the 185 threshold need to win. The Republican, Rutherford B. Hayes, had only 165, with four states (Florida, Louisiana, Oregon, and South Carolina) returning disputed slates. Then, in a secret back-room deal, it is presumed that Thomas Scott, president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, then the largest corporation in the world, orchestrated a compromise in which the Republican would get the presidency. What did the Democrats get in exchange for giving up the presidency, which they quite likely would have won? An end to Reconstruction, with the Republicans agreeing to remove the federal troops from the Southern states, which they had placed there to protect black residents and voters in the wake of the Civil War. This ushered in the era of Jim Crow, with intense suppression of African American voters, Civil Rights, and freedom. There is no written evidence to confirm that the Compromise of 1877 occurred. But if it did, it most likely occurred at the Wormley Hotel, one of the fanciest and most renowned hotels in Washington, D.C., owned by James Wormley, an African American man, and an activist for black Civil Rights.</p><p><a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/workingclass" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>workingclass</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/LaborHistory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>LaborHistory</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/racism" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>racism</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/Riot" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Riot</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/murder" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>murder</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/massacre" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>massacre</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/reconstruction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>reconstruction</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/hamburg" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>hamburg</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/votersuppression" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>votersuppression</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/election" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>election</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/blm" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>blm</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/jameswormley" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>jameswormley</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/wormleyhotel" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>wormleyhotel</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/pennsylvania" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>pennsylvania</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/railroad" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>railroad</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/jimcrow" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>jimcrow</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/civilrights" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>civilrights</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/civilwar" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>civilwar</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/BlackMastadon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>BlackMastadon</span></a></p>