Brown v. Board of Education and Plessy v. Ferguson dominate discussion of the impact of the Supreme Court on matters of southern race relations, and understandably so given the significance of Brown in overturning Plessy. As a result, historians have focused heavily on the Plessy case as a way of understanding the emergence of Jim Crow segregation. Yet this is to study the late nineteenth century from the perspective of the mid-twentieth century, and overlook other Supreme Court decisions of the late nineteenth century, most notably the decision in the 1883 Civil Rights Cases. This article will explore the implications of the 1883 decision: how it reignited an existing national debate over the meaning of civil rights that was influenced by local concerns. Through a study of how African Americans in Alabama responded to the court's 1883 decision, this article will demonstrate that black political activism remained strong well into the 1880s. Race and citizenship were brought into sharp focus by this decision, which had longer-term implications over the very meaning of civil rights in America.

中文翻译：

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非裔美国人公民身份、1883 年民权案件和吉姆·克劳南部的创建

布朗诉教育委员会案和普莱西诉弗格森案主导了最高法院对南方种族关系问题影响的讨论，考虑到布朗在推翻普莱西案中的重要性，这是可以理解的。因此，历史学家将重点放在 Plessy 案上，以此来理解 Jim Crow 种族隔离的出现。然而，这是从二十世纪中叶的角度来研究十九世纪后期，而忽略了其他最高法院在十九世纪后期的判决，尤其是 1883 年民权案件的判决。本文将探讨 1883 年决定的影响：它如何重新引发现有的全国性辩论，即受当地关注影响的公民权利的含义。通过研究阿拉巴马州的非裔美国人如何回应法庭” 根据 1883 年的决定，本文将证明黑人政治激进主义在 1880 年代仍然很强大。这一决定使种族和公民身份成为人们关注的焦点，这对美国公民权利的意义产生了更长期的影响。