The Compromise of 1877 ended Reconstruction as the Republican Rutherford B. Hayes won the presidency over the Democrat Samuel Tilden. The election of 1876 was quite close and the electoral votes of South Carolina, Louisiana, and Florida were controversial as both parties claimed voter fraud. The election went to the House of Representatives. Even though Tilden won the popular vote, he did not win enough electoral votes to claim victory. A compromise was reached in which Hayes would win the presidency and military Reconstruction would end in the South.

As federal soldiers left the South, African Americans saw their voting rights gradually erode due to state and local statutes. A group called the Redeemers in the South advocated for a push against black suffrage and a return to the South's Democratic party roots. Voting laws were purged as states issued grandfather clauses which stated that if one's grandfather was eligible to vote, then one could vote. This did not apply to any free blacks in the South. Unfair literacy tests were also given with black voters being given more challenging passages than white voters even though poor whites were similar to poor African Americans in terms of educational opportunities. Black voter turnout dwindled and most African American gains at the state and local levels were undone by 1890.