One subject of African American history I rarely see discussed is the means 
by which Jim Crow was instituted. Yet Jim Crow was certainly the most 
important factor in the lives of African Americans for almost a century. The 
PBS show African American Lives alluded to it briefly last night when it 
said something about white South Carolina Republicans trading the suffrage 
of African Americans for a Republican in the White House.

Robert C. Lawrence in "The State of Robeson" (quoted by Karen I. Blu, "The 
Lumbee Problem) says that in North Carollina in 1875 "the Democratically 
dominated legislature called for the election of delegates to a 
constitutional convention. The election was closely contested across the 
state, and it became clear that the outcome would be very close. During 
these elections, the state Democratic chairman sent a telegram to the 
Democratic chariman of Robeson County containing the message, As you love 
your State hold Robeson." In the county Democratic candidates were elected 
by a slight majority, thereby "holding" Robeson and giving rise to the 
expression, "Hold Robeson and Save the State." The final results of the 
state election left the Democrats and Republicans tied, after the death of 
one Democrat, three Independents held the balance of power. In the end, the 
Democrats converted an Independent or two and pushed through the principle 
of separate schools for separate races, banned miscegenation, and took the 
control of county governments out of local hands."

There was a Republican sheriff in the 1870s, and as late as 1897, a 
Republican-Populist fusion government was elected in the state, and Robeson 
County Democrats and Republicans were still locked in a struggle for 
dominance.

Robeson had a large population of former "free Persons of Color" who had 
been accustomed to go to school and church with whites and could vote under 
the grandfather clause. The Democrats won their votes by creating a separate 
race for them: Indians. They were allowed their own separate schools, 
separate seating areas in movie theaters, separate drinking fountains and 
rest rooms, and separate waiting rooms in bus and train stations.

"Republicans continued to be threats to Democratic rule until about 1900 
when extralegal violence from the "Red Shirts" combined with Jim Crow laws 
to make further Republican victories impossible."

What is the history of the process by which Jim Crow was instituted in 
Virginia?
Paul 

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