The impression historians, educators, and the entertainment industry want to promote is that the 80 years between the end of Reconstruction and the beginning of the civil rights movement was that America, and the South in particular, was as bad for blacks as Nazi Germany was for Jews. Emphasis is on the lynchings, unjust punishment of blacks, confinement of blacks to poor neighborhoods, etc. A movie like Song of the South portrays an alternate reality.
There was a lot of injustice in the South after 1877 and before 1956. But not all whites were Klansmen or subscribed to white supremacy. There were decent people, both black and white.
During this period, the South, with few exceptions, was a one party Democrat region.