radical transformation of southern extractive institutions into
inclusive ones, and launched the South onto a path to
economic prosperity. But in yet another manifestation of the
vicious circle, nothing of the sort happened. A continuation
of extractive institutions, this time of the Jim Crow kind
rather than of slavery, emerged in the South. The phrase
Jim Crow , which supposedly originated from “Jump Jim
Crow,” an early-nineteenth-century satire of black people
performed by white performers in “blackface,” came to
refer to the whole gamut of segregationist legislation that
was enacted in the South after 1865. These persisted for
almost another century, until yet another major upheaval, the
civil rights movement. In the meantime, blacks continued to
be excluded from power and repressed. Plantation-type
agriculture based on low-wage, poorly educated labor
persisted, and southern incomes fell further relative to the
U.S. average. The vicious circle of extractive institutions
was stronger than many had expected at the time.