During this time period in the US, racism led to widespread segregation and discrimination. Segregation was legal and enforced in the South through Jim Crow laws, which separated public spaces by race. Violence against African Americans was also common, with over 1,400 lynchings from 1882-1892 alone. The 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court ruling established the "separate but equal" doctrine, allowing racial segregation to continue for decades. Discrimination also affected other groups like Mexican, Asian, and Native Americans through systems like debt peonage.