Between 1886 and 1898 black farmers, sharecroppers, and agrarian laborers organized their communities to combat the rising tide of Jim Crow laws.
[3] By the late 1890s, propaganda campaigns warning of a “second Reconstruction” and “Negro rule,” physical intimidation, violence, and assassinations of leaders and foot soldiers led to the movement's downfall.
A key figure in the attack on Black Populism was Ben Tillman, the leader of South Carolina's white farmers' movement.
[4] The notion that African Americans had somehow betrayed populism[clarification needed] would haunt the Georgia People's Party from the very beginning.
[5] Black populism was destroyed, marking the end of organized political resistance to the return of white supremacy in the South in the late 19th century.