 Through the 1960s, Jacksonville, like many other large cities in the US, suffered from the effects of urban sprawl, with the city losing tax base to new residential and business development in the suburbs, which also drew out jobs.Both the city and county suffered corruption scandals, following virtual one-party rule by conservative white Democrats since the turn of the century, when the state legislature had disenfranchised most African Americans and effectively hollowed out the Republican Party, with which most blacks had been allied since they were granted the franchise as freedmen following the Civil War.In the 1960s, a grand jury indicted 11 Jacksonville and Duval County officials on 142 counts of bribery and larceny including