 During Reconstruction, black male sexuality became a battle cry of Southern politicians decrying "negro domination", warning of the perils of racial equality.The idea of "manhood" was synonymous with the rights and responsibilities of U.S. citizenship.Whites began framing black manhood with sexual connotations, conflating the political and economic agency of black men with sexual agency (framed as "aggressive" and "transgressive"), from which whites, particularly white women, needed to be protected.