Jim Crow & African American Activism

Federal Legislation raised African American expectations

13th Amendment (18 Dec 1865)

“Officially ended Slavery in the United States”

14th Amendment (9 July 1868)

“Rights of Citizenship and Due Process of Law”

15th Amendment (3 Feb 1870)

“Guaranteed the Right to Vote to Former Slaves”

Southern Legislation passed to keep the Black Man Down

• Enacted by most Southern States

• Blacks required to carry proof of employment (Contracts)

• Special state tax for Blacks

• Vagrancy Laws provided for arresting Blacks who had no money or proof of employment

• Fugitive Worker Laws enacted to force runaway Blacks to return an work off contracts

• Declared invalid by General Oliver Otis Howard in 1866

Southern Legislation passed to keep the Black Man Down

• Enacted by states across the U.S.

• Miscegenation Laws were widespread: No mixed marriages allowed between whites and negroes or mulattos

• Segregation Laws: Unlawful for a black child to attend a white school or visa-versa

• Separate but Equal Laws: Applied to restaurants and public modes of transportation (Railroad/Bus)

• Voting Literacy Tests: Required Black voters to be able to read

Legal Decisions helped to keep the Black Man Down

• 1890: Louisiana passed the “Separate Car Act”

• 1892: Homer Plessy purchased a first class ticket to travel by rail and boarded the “White’s Only” car

• Homer Plessy was an “octoroon” (1/8th Black and 7/8th White)

• Homer Plessy was arrested & tried for violating the law

• The case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court

Legal Decisions helped to keep the Black Man Down

Plessy vs Ferguson (1896)

Justice Henry B. Brown

Justice John M. Harlan

Majority Opinion Minority Opinion

• 13th Amendment abolished the legality of slavery, not racial differences between the white and colored races

• 14th Amendment was designed to enforce absolute equality of treatment under the law, not social equality among the races

• Our Constitution is color-blind, but this decision will defeat

the intended benefits of the 13th and 14th Amendments

• In time it will prove to be as harmful as the Supreme Court decision in the Dred Scott case

Ultimate Impact

“Separate But Equal” facilities are constitutional

Racism

Share Cropping

or (Debt

Peonage)

KKK

Segregation

Lynching

Defacto Discrimination used to keep the Black Man Down

Social Practices of

Discrimination

Defacto Discrimination used to keep the Black Man Down

• Often conducted by small groups of White Vigilantes late at night

• Sometimes they became Mass Spectacles with Circus-Like atmospheres

• Children often attend public lynchings

• Newspaper reporters were invited to attend the events

• Post Cards were even made and sold

• Fewer than 1% of all White participants were ever convicted

Defacto Discrimination used to keep the Black Man Down

• The Chicago Tribune did not start keeping record of lynching until 1882.

• The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) did not start keeping records until 1912.

1882-1930 Deep South

Mississippi / 462

Georgia / 423

Louisiana / 283

Alabama / 262

South Carolina / 143

Border South

Florida / 212

Tennessee / 174

Arkansas / 162

Kentucky / 118

North Carolina / 75

Women Activist Attempts to Change Society

• Born a slave in Mississippi during the Civil War

• Freed after the war and attended Fisk University in Tennessee

• 1884: Won lawsuit against Railroad Company who threw her off train for sitting in an “White’s Only” car

• Became a School Teacher and Newspaper Journalist

• 1892: Began a campaign against lynching in the South using her skills of Investigative Journalism

• Published “Southern Horrors: Lynch Laws in All its Phases”

Defacto Discrimination used to keep the Black Man Down

• Election of a White Mayor & a Bi-racial City Council

Wilmington Race Riot (Nov 1898)

• White supremacists of the Democratic Party seized power

• 1500 White men participated in burning down a Black Newspaper Office

• City Officials were forced to flee town, while wide-spread attacks killed numerous blacks

• City changed from a Black to a White Majority

Defacto Discrimination used to keep the Black Man Down

Atlanta Race Riot (Sep 1906)

• Two Candidates for Governor, who were also Newspaper Editors, looked for a way to disenfranchise the threat of Black voters in Ga.

• An Atlanta Newspaper reported four alleged assaults on local White women by Black Men

• Attacks on Black residents resulted in approximately 25 – 40 deaths

• Forced relocation of many Blacks and revived the Ku Klux Klan in Ga.

Two Approaches to Improving the Status of the Black Man

Booker T. Washington (1856 - 1915)

W. E. B. DuBois

(1868 - 1963)

• Born into Slavery in Virginia

• Born a Free Man in Massachusetts

• Worked his way through Hampton Normal School & Agricultural Institute in Virginia

• First African-American to obtain a Doctorate at Harvard University

• First to head the Tuskegee Institute (Teacher’s School) in AL.

• Appointed as a Professor at the Atlanta University in GA.

• Promoted Black acceptance of Segregation & Vocational Education in the Atlanta Compromise (1895)

• Leader of the Niagara Movement to oppose Racial Segregation and the Disenfranchisement of Blacks (1905)

Two Approaches to Improving the Status of the Black Man

Booker T. Washington (1856 - 1915)

W. E. B. DuBois

(1868 - 1963)

Who was a better Advocate for the African-American?

• African-Americans should be Patient and Earn Equality

Beliefs Beliefs

• African-Americans should Fight for Political Equality

• African-Americans should gain Economic Security before Equal Rights

• African-Americans deserve Civil Rights without having to earn them

• African-Americans will gain Equality through Vocational Education

• African-American Education is meaningless without Equality

Two Approaches to Improving the Status of the Black Man

Booker T. Washington (1856 - 1915)

W. E. B. DuBois

(1868 - 1963)

Who was a better Advocate for the African-American?

• Wrote: Up From Slavery (1901) • Wrote: The Souls of Black Folk (1903)

• 1900: Founder of the National Negro Business League

• 1909: Co-Founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)

• Popular with White Leaders and labeled an “Uncle Tom” by many Black Leaders

• Un-Popular with White Leaders and accused of not understanding the plight of Southern Blacks

Two Approaches to Improving the Status of the Black Man

Booker T. Washington (1856 - 1915)

W. E. B. DuBois

(1868 - 1963)

Who was a better Advocate for the African-American?

• Opposing Viewpoints – Jim Crow and the Black Response

Viewpoint 11A: Blacks should stop agitating for Political Equality By: Booker T. Washington (1895)

Viewpoint 11B: A Critique of Booker T. Washington By: W. E. B. DuBois (1903)