The number of black voters increased in the years after reconstruction

In much of the country in the late nineteenth century, social tensions were defined in terms of rich versus poor, native-born versus immigrant, and worker versus capitalist. In the states of the former Confederacy, despite all the calls for a New South in the years after Reconstruction, tensions continued to center upon the relations between blacks and whites. Although a small percentage of African-Americans found work in the new iron foundries and steel mills, they were generally barred from the textile mills that grew into the region's major industry.