Slavery was never reestablished, but after President Ulysses S. Grant left the White House in 1877, white Democrats took control of all the southern states and blacks lost nearly all the political power they had achieved during Reconstruction. By 1900, they also lost the right to vote - they had become second class citizens. The great majority lived in the rural South in poverty working as laborers, sharecroppers or tenant farmers; a small proportion owned their own land. The black churches, especially the Baptist Church, was the center of community activity and leadership.