Phoenix election riot

The race-based riot was part of numerous efforts by white conservative Democrats to suppress voting by blacks, as they had largely supported the Republican Party since the Reconstruction era.

Beginning with Mississippi in 1890, and South Carolina in 1895, southern states were passing new constitutions and laws designed to disenfranchise blacks by making voter registration and voting more difficult.

The riot started after white land-owner Thomas Tolbert began to take affidavits of African Americans who had been disenfranchised by the new Constitution of South Carolina.

On November 8, 1898,[2] Thomas Tolbert stood at the entrance of the Watson and Lake general store and began to collect the affidavits.

Conservative white Democrats completed their takeover of state governments, although blacks continued to elect some persons to office through the century.

To ensure and enforce blacks' second-class status, white Democrats enacted segregation and Jim Crow laws throughout the South.

The parties were largely race-based, and conservative white Democrats were determined to ensure that black Republicans were excluded from voting and from offices.

Thomas Tolbert, a white man, believed that African Americans deserved the right to vote, and disagreed with their disenfranchisement by the South Carolina State Constitution.

November 8, 1898, at around 9:00 in the morning,[7] Thomas Tolbert joined African Americans (and Republicans) Joe Circuit, Will White and others outside of the polling place at Watson and Lake general store.

[8] Tolbert had hoped to use the affidavits to expose the ongoing electoral fraud that had deprived African Americans of the vote for the past twenty-two years.

[9] The insurrection resulted in roughly 25 African Americans murdered and countless more injured by a white mob that roamed the city, attacking blacks.