#8 African Americans and Race at the Turn of the Century *unfinished

Sharecropping

After slavery, most African Americans remained working similar jobs
no reparations for slavery generally nave no education, money, etc
many waite southerns word refuse to sell land to black owners
Most black free people had to contact to work for quite low compensation
Share cropping – large estate owned by white owner, and black people didn’t get paid but got to keep a share of the crops
Share a lot of crop with the owner but at least now you can put food on the table for family
Kept most black workers impoverished

Slavery

White southerners did not want equality
Southern states pass laws to separate in day to day life
Laws say black people must ride in second class cars
Black community protested
1890s, Homer plessy to action to challenge racial laws
Race “one drop rule” – historically if you have any black heritage, you are a black person

Plessy vs. Ferguson

Plessy bought a first class ticket, and got arrested
Sued the railroad company, saying it is violation of 14th amendment
Plessy vs feguson was a supreme court decision
Court sides with railroad
Supreme court rules separation is not inequality
Court says plessy is still riding the train, as it is separate but equal
This gives green light to southern states that segregation is acceptable

The "Jim Crow" System

Entire public space in the south becomes segregated
By 1900s, every state south of PA had created these Jim Crow Laws
“Seperate but equal”
Segregation in schools, public bathrooms, neighborhoods, transit
Suppressed African Americans from voting due to poll taxes, literacy tests, and grandfather clauses

Poll taxes

There would be a fee you had to pay, and it’s intention was to mitigate black people from voting, as after slavery they were impoverished and many did not have the funds

Literacy Tests

Another tactic used to prevent black people from voting. You had to pass these tests in order to be eligible to vote, and they could be unfairly administered, with open ended questions and white registrars failing black test takers

Grandfather clauses

If your grandparents/ past family members could vote, then you were allowed to vote. Basically, if you were allowed to vote before the civil war, you don’t have to take the literacy test. This biased white people because African Americans had not been allowed to vote before the civil war, forcing them to take the unfairly administered literacy tests. By the 1900s, black the amount of voting by black americans goes down to nearly 0 %.

Lynching

African Americans were targeted by White large townwide Mobs in the south, and usually were hung on trees in a public display and accused of a crime they didn’t commit. For example, having relations with a white woman would likely result in the African American getting lynched, and the police did not usually punish because the mob had excuses like they killed an african american over rape, when clearly rumors like these were not true.

II. The Harlem Renaissance

The Great Migration

Large numbers of African American families started to leave the south for cities like Atlanta, chicago, memphis, and new york. This was important for them because they were trying to escape the segregation of the jim crow system, and the lynchings of the racist southerners as well. Harlem New York was a popular part of New york city where black american culture rose.

W.E.B. DuBois

Grew up in Mass, went to integrated school, faced racism, went to Harvard, civil rights activist. Fought for blacks having equal right as white people, and teamed up with Ida B Wells to create NAACP.

Ida B. Wells

Was a popular journalist in the south who covered the lynchings and reported opn them. She faced many death threats from white people and had to move away from the south in her own fear of safety.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)

Organization that advocated for equal rights, end of segregation and wanted to ban lynching.

Booker T. Washington

Famous black leader who claimed that fighting against segregation is not completely beneficial for black Americans.

What was the "Jim Crow" system of segregation and how and why did it arise?

How did Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois react to segregation? How and why did they diffeer