 Following Reconstruction, white Democrats regained control of the state legislature, passing laws for segregation of public facilities, Jim Crow and a new constitution of 1895 that effectively disfranchised most blacks in the state.This exclusion from the political system was not ended until after decades of activism by African Americans, who gained passage of federal civil rights legislation in the mid-1960s to enforce their constitutional rights.In November 1941, Lake Marion was created as a reservoir by construction of the Santee Dam by the United States Corps of Engineers.