African Americans during the Guilded Age

Background info - Guilded Age

Period of considerable expansion and growth. Civil Rights characterised by Hayes-Tilden Compromise, which led to the South imposing considerable racial segregation. Overseas expansion by USA.

Lack of Progress - Political

Exclusion from registration for voting. Grandfather clauses. Taxes. Property ownership. Mississippi v Williams (1898)
George H. White dies 1901. Last Black congressman.
Presidents were unactive, due to the split house and senate, and therefore didn’t address controversial issues

Progress - Political

Movement towards the North led to increased franchise at local levels as all AA lived in same areas.

Lack of Progress - Social

Segregation (Transport – Plessy v Ferguson 1896. Acts as a legal precedent) (Districts – Harlem). Support from African Americans for segregation – Booker T Washington.
violence – lynching.
False arrests and imprisonments.
Social Darwinism.

Ida B Wells failed to have her findings supported in Congress so little progress made.

US v Harris, removes the 1873 civil rights cases.

Progress - Social

Literacy improvement. (1865, 1/20 of AA could read, by 1895, this was ½)

Rise in AA religious organisations, banks, insurance schemes.

Ghettos, increased possibility of strong black culture developing.

Ida B. Wells – submitted findings against lynching, suggesting that rape was often not the cause of lynching, and questioned idea of white female innocence in cases.

Lack of Progress - Economic

Lack of capital for AA who moved West. Many didn’t have the money to begin the westward move.
Poverty still considered the norm. In the South -> Sharecropping still big thing. Labour intensive crops. This made worse by the boll weevil which damaged the cotton crop.

Progress - Economic

Rise in companies run by AA.

1900, increase in AA trade unions, allowing for support of workers’ rights. 47000 AA professionals (however out of a population of 8 million this isn’t loads)

Slow movement towards more landownership. 1910 – 25% of AA farmers owner their land.

Booker T Washington campaigning for economic autonomy for AA. (Atlanta Compromise).

Summary of the wider spectrum of debates

Considerable spectrum of debate on the extent of progress made. Some historians focus on the economic progress made in the North, whereas others focus on the lack of progress due to segregation in the South.